The Lagos State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has announced that it will deliver judgements in the petitions filed by the governorship candidate of the People Democratic Party, Olajide Abdulazeez Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, and the governorship candidate of the Labour Party, Gbadebo Rhoades-Vivour, against the outcome of the March 18 governorship on Monday, September 25th.

The three-man tribunal led by Justice Arum notified the involved parties on this development on Saturday. A release by the Head, of Media and Communications JANDOR4Governor Campaign Organization, Gbenga Ogunleye, confirmed the development that the tribunal sitting would commence at 9 a.m. on Monday. “The Lagos State Governorship Election Tribunal has announced that its verdict on the petitions filed by the PDP gubernatorial candidate, Dr Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran (JANDOR) in respect of the 2023 Governorship election in Lagos State will be delivered on Monday 25th September 2023. The tribunal will sit for delivery of the much-awaited judgment at the Roseline Omotosho Court House, Lagos High Court, Ikeja by 9 am”

Gbadebo Rhoades-Vivour, the governorship candidate of the Labour Party also confirmed this development in a post he made on X, formerly known as Twitter indicating that he had been informed that the judgment would be delivered on Monday. He stated, “We have just been informed that judgment on our election petition at the tribunal will be delivered on Monday, the 25th of September.”

This is coming after over a month since the court had heard and adopted the final written addresses of the concerned parties in the case and as the cases filed in April are approaching their 180-day statutory deadline the law stated that the petition must be heard and judgement must be delivered.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Babajide Sanwo-Olu as the winner of the state governorship election, having polled 762,134 votes to defeat his closest rival, Rhodes-Vivour, who polled 312,329. Also the candidate of the PDP, Adediran, came third with 62,449 votes while the candidate of Allied Peoples Movement, Funmilayo Kupoluyi, polled 884 and the candidate of All Peoples Party, Abiola Adeyemi, had 259 votes.

Not satisfied with the outcome of the election, the four parties approached the Justice Arum-led tribunal to seek redress to the election. However, the tribunal dismissed the petitions of two parties- All Peoples Party (APP) and Allied Peoples Movement upon their withdrawal of cases against the victory of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress.

But the Gbadebo Rhoades Vivour of the Labour Party and Olajide Abdulazeez Adediran, moved on with their cases, insisting that Sanwo-Olu and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat did not win the election based on different grounds which they presented their witnesses and evidence t0 corroborate their arguments. Mr Rhoades-Vivour named INEC, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Dr Obafemi Hamzat and the All Progressives Congress as the first to fourth respondents respectively. The PDP candidate, however added the Labour Party and its candidate, Rhoades-Vivour to his list of respondents for non-compliance with electoral law.

In his petition, Mr. Rhoade-Vivour alleged that Mr Sanwo-Olu was not elected by the majority of the lawful votes cast at the election, that he did not comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and the constitution, and that Sanwo-Olu was not qualified at the time of the election to contest the poll. He also questioned the eligibility of Lagos State Deputy Governor Dr Obafemi Hamzat to run in the election, claiming that Dr. Hamzat has sworn an oath of allegiance to the United States of America and is thus no longer a Nigerian citizen.

The Labour Party governorship candidate thereafter presented six witnesses, and several documents of Forms EC8 and EC9 to Justice Arum’s tribunal, praying to the court to disqualify the election that brought in Mr Sanwo-Olu as the governor of the state. In his written final address, Mr Rhoades- Vivour also maintained that “to dismiss his petition would amount to an endorsement of unconstitutionality and the possibility of opening every state in Nigeria to having persons with sworn loyalties to foreign entities liable to be conscripted,”.

Likewise, Olajide Abdulazeez Adediran of PDP insisted that the March 18 election was far from being free and fair, seeking the disqualification of the state governor on the grounds that he had presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission, that the deputy governor did not include his oath of declaration page in his Form EC9, and that APC did not comply with the Electoral Act (2022) while nominating Mr Sanwo-Olu and his deputy for the election.

To build his case, Consequently, Mr Adediran through his legal counsel subpoenaed the West African Examination Council to present the original certificate of the state governor, which the examination body failed to tender at the court. Consequently, the petitioner applied to access the backend server of the examination body

Meanwhile, the PDP candidate also alleged that Gbadebo Rhoades Vivour of the Labour Party did not comply with the electoral law before contesting during the election. He told the court that Mr Rhoades-Vivour was not a member of the Labour Party before he was nominated as the party flagbearer in the state, therefore seeking his disqualification.

However, the Independent National Electoral Commission, which is the first respondent in the hearing had maintained that the petitioners did not provide evidence to establish their cases, asking the tribunal to strike the their prayers out. The electoral umpire also argued that it conducted the election in a free and fair manner.“The Petitioner wholly failed to discharge the evidential burden placed on him by Section 136 of the Evident Act, 2011, and Section 135 (1) of the Electoral Act, 2022. In the light of the wide range of serious allegations touching practically all of the units where the election was conducted, the total dearth of evidence in proof of the Petitioner’s case is most astonishing,” INEC said.

Similarly, Mr Sanwo-Olu and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, who are the second and third respondents, petitioned the tribunal through their legal team to dismiss the petitions filed against them. They stated that the petitioners had failed to provide proof of their petitions to the court, asking the court to dismiss their petitions.“Having inundated the Tribunal with a petition of 184 pages, the petitioner failed to bring evidence to ventilate the expansive petition, assuming without conceding that it contained prolific or cogent grounds qua complaints. Since the tribunal cannot go on a frolic to extract evidence or engage in a self-inquisitorial examination of dumped documents, the option legitimately open to the Tribunal is to enter a deserving order of dismissal”, they said.