Osun Governorship Election Tribunal Declares Adeleke Winner Of Sept 2018 Poll
BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – The Osun State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abuja on Friday ruled that the Peoples Democratic Party and its Governorship candidate in the September 2018 election in Osun State, Senator Ademola Adeleke is the valid winner of the election.
In a majority judgement, the Tribunal further ruled that the All Progressives Congress and its candidate, Gboyega Oyetola, were not validly returned in the Osun 2018 governorship election.
Accordingly, the Tribunal directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to withdraw the Certficate of Return it earlier issued to Oyetola and should issue a fresh one to Adeleke.
It held that the petition filed by Senator Adeleke and the PDP challenging the victory of the APC and Governor Oyetola at the Sept. 2018 governorship election has merit and remains valid.
Senator Adeleke filed a petition urging the Tribunal to declare that he polled the highest lawful votes and should therefore be declared winner of the election.
However, Governor Oyetola, the APC and INEC filed notices of preliminary objection contending among others that the petition was incompetent and that the Tribunal has no jurisdiction over such declaration.
The three-member panel of the Tribunal however dismissed the objections filed by the trio of Oyetola, APC and INEC.
In their preliminary objections, Oyetola, APC and INEC described the petition as incompetent and urged the Tribunal not to entertain it.
But the Tribunal in its lead judgement delivered by its chairman, Justice Ibrahim Sirajo, held that the objections raised by Oyetola, APC and INEC were misconceived and struck them out.
The Tribunal ruled that the CTC form should and must be an exact replica of the EC8A pink copies, adding that the discrepancies must therefore be explained and justified by INEC.
The Tribunal further held that INEC having failed to explain or justify the alterations as well as failed to call any witness to justify the alterations cannot be accepted and admitted.
It specifically ruled that the attempt to explain the alterations on the basis of mere corrections of errors is not acceptable stressing that the fact that the said errors were consistently made in the disputed areas meant that it was a deliberate action taken.
The Tribunal on principles established the followings;
- Established mutilations of CTC of EC8AS by INEC.
- Wrong cancellation of elections in 7 Polling Units by Returning officer instead of the PU Presiding officer.
The Tribunal therefore went ahead to cancel the result of 17 polling units thereby deducting 2029 from APC votes and 1246 votes from PDP votes which gave Senator Adeleke 783 votes in his favour.
The total vote scored by the two candidates is as shown below:
PDP. APC
255,023. 255, 505
– 1,246. – 2, 029
—————– —————
= 253,777. 253,476
Senator Adeleke thus have 301 total of valid votes in his favour.
