Osun State Governorship Election Tribunal has declared the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, winner of the September 22 governorship election in Osun State
Simultaneously, it sacked Mr Adegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress, APC as governor of the state.
It also declared the September rerun as illegal, as Adeleke had won on first ballot.
The three man tribunal, at its Friday sitting in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, in a two-to-one split decision, declared winner of the election
Justice Peter Obiora, who read the lead judgement, voided the supplementary election held on September 27, 2018 on the ground that the state returning officer has no power to have cancelled election in seven polling units in four Local Government and order a rerun.
It also cancelled results from 17 polling units on ground of substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act.
The Election Petitions Tribunal set up for the 2018 governorship election in Osun State has declared Ademola Adeleke winner of the election.
The tribunal therefore deducted the votes scored by the APC candidate Gboyega Oyetola at the rerun illegal.
It said that Adeleke won the election at the first ballot on September 22, and the rerun that INEC devised to reach a final conclusion a week later was illegal.
Specifically, it said that the rerun Osun governorship election on September 27, 2018 in seven polling units was illegal..
It stated the exercise was borne out of an illegal cancellation of results in the polling units during the September 22, 2018 original poll.
The tribunal declared that the Returning Officers who declared the results cancelled, lacked the power to do so.
The PDP and its governorship candidate, Adeleke, had petitioned the tribunal to declare Adeleke the governor-elect having polled the highest lawful votes in the original election.
It held that the petition of the PDP, and its candidate, Adeleke, challenging Oyetola’s victory as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has merit.
Therefore, it dismissed the objections filed by Oyetola, APC and INEC.
Delivering the lead ruling of the three-man tribunal, Chairman Ibrahim Sirajo, held that the objections were misconceived and struck them out.
The Tribunal held that the Certified True Copy, CTC, should and must be an exact replica of the EC8A pink copies.
It held that the discrepancies must therefore be explained and justified by INEC.
In this instance, the tribunal held that INEC failed to explain nor justify the alterations and that they failed to call any witness to justify the alterations.
It further held that the attempt to explain the alterations on the basis of mere corrections of errors is not acceptable and the fact that the said errors were consistently made in the disputed areas means it was a deliberate action taken.
However, Oyetola, APC and INEC had filed their notices of preliminary objection against the petition on the grounds that the petition is incompetent adding that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the petition.
After the first ballot, Adeleke polled 254,698 votes to beat Oyetola who trailed him with 254,345 votes.
INEC, however, declared the election inconclusive because the margin between the PDP and APC, 353 votes, is less than the number of registered voters, 3,498, in the seven polling units where elections were cancelled.
The rerun election was held at three polling units in Orolu, two polling units in Ife South, one polling unit in Ife North local governments and one polling unit in Osogbo.
Prof. Adeola Afuwape, the Returning Officer of the election, during the collation after the rerun said Oyetola polled 255,505 votes to defeat Adeleke who got 255,023 votes. He then declared Oyetole the winner of the election.
“That Gboyega Oyetola, having satisfied the requirement of the law and won the highest number of votes is hereby declared winner and returned elected,” Afuwape said.
