Adeleke Floors Oyetola At Appeal Court

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, in a unanimous judgement on Friday, set aside the judgement of the Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and affirmed the victory of Governor Ademola Adeleke at the polls on July 16, 2022.

The Appeal set aside the January 27 judgement of the Tribunal which invalidated Adeleke’s success at the polls and sought his removal from office. The appellate court gave the judgement in a 31-grounds of appeal filed by Governor Adeleke.

Delivering judgment, the appellate panel led by Justice Mohamed Lawal Shuaibu held that the tribunal erred by not addressing the issue raised by Adeleke in his preliminary objection to Oyetola’s petition. It held that Oyetola did not prove over-voting in his petition as he did not present substantial evidence to back his claims.

Also, the Court ruled that Oyetola’s witness was not an expert which he held himself to be. PW 1 claimed to be an expert, but he did not give evidence of his qualifications and did not deny his membership of the APC. His evidence was barren.

The Court of Appeal also held that the BVAS machines themselves are the primary sources of accreditation data, not the server report. The issue is resolved in favour of Adeleke. “On the whole, the appeal is meritorious and thereby allowed.

“The 1st and 2nd respondents shall pay cost of N500,000 each to the appellant, the panel held.

Governor Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had won the said election held on 16 July, 2022, but the result was nullified by the tribunal on the grounds of over-voting.

Consequently, a 3-man panel of the tribunal ordered Adeleke’s sack, and directed the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) to withdraw the certificate of return issued to him and issue a fresh one to Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC)as the duly elected governor of Osun.

The tribunal held that Adeleke did not score the majority of lawful votes during the July 16 governorship election in the state.

Adeleke was declared the winner of the governorship poll held on July 16.

But not satisfied with the outcome of the poll, in August 2022, Oyetola, the former Osun governor and his party, the APC petitioned the tribunal to challenge the victory of Adeleke on the grounds that he did not qualify to contest the election and that there was over voting in 749 polling units across 10 local government areas of the state.

In the judgement, two out of the three-member panel of the tribunal held that Oyetola proved substantially that there was indeed over-voting in some of the polling units.