Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State
Supreme Court affirms Adeleke’s victory as Osun governor
The Supreme Court sitting in Abuja on Tuesday affirmed Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the elected Governor of Osun State.
The judgement followed an earlier decision by a three-member panel of the appellate court led by Mohammed Shuaibu, which affirmed his victory, nullifying the judgement of the election petition tribunal.
Recall that Oyetola and his party, had approached the apex court in a suit numbered, SC/CV/510/2023, praying the court to set aside the decision of the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, which voided the judgment of the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal, which returned Oyetola as winner of the November July 16, 2022 governorship election.
Oyetola and APC in their case filed to Supreme court on behalf by their lead counsel, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), want the apex court to determine whether the appellate court was right “in declaring as nullity the judgment of the tribunal delivered on January 27 notwithstanding the earlier resolution of the same court that Section 294(1) of the Constitution is inapplicable to a tribunal”.
INEC had in 2022 declared Adeleke as winner of the 16 July governorship election having scored a majority of the votes cast in the election. The tribunal in its split judgment of two-to-one delivered in January, held that Oyetola and not Adeleke won a majority of the lawful votes in the election.
Oyetola and his party, approached the three-member tribunal panel to challenge the victory of Adeleke on the ground that there was over-voting
Justice Tertsea Kume led-tribunal, had on January 27, in a split decision of two-to-one, voided the declaration of Adeleke as winner of the governorship election that held on July 16, 2022.
In the majority judgement, the tribunal upheld a petition filed by the former governor of the state, Adegboyega Oyetola of the APC who came second in the election.
It held that Adeleke did not score the majority of lawful votes, adding that the conduct of the election was not in substantial compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.
According to the tribunal, the petitioners, Oyetola and APC, successfully established that there was over voting in 744 polling units in the state.
After deducting the said invalid votes, the tribunal declared Oyetola as winner of the governorship contest and directed the INEC to withdraw the Certificate of Return it earlier issued to Adeleke.
However, in his dissenting judgement, the third member of the panel, Justice P. Agbuli, affirmed Adeleke as the valid winner of the election and struck out the petition that was lodged by Oyetola and the APC.
Details later
