30th December, 2014
Jamiu Yisa
The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro’s assertion in an interview with one of the national newspaper that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) already has the upper hand at the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal in Osogbo as “the dream of a drunk, or better still, a drug addict.”
The party stated this in a press release by its Director of Publicity, Research and Strategy, Barrister Kunle Oyatomi, while commenting on the reported statement by the defeated PDP governorship aspirant in Lagos.
Obanikoro had, in the interview, said: “if you have been following proceedings at the court of law, you will see that we have gained the upper hand. Aregbesola won with about 50 per cent of the votes while we scored about 40 per cent of the votes. . . You wait for the outcome of the tribunal. We are going to win because the facts show that the results are in favour of the PDP”.
According to the APC spokesman, “Obanikoro is in contempt of court with that statement which was obviously designed to misinform the public against evidence before the tribunal”.
Oyatomi declared that only a drunken man or one in the stupor of drug overdose would arrive at Obanikoro’s conclusion which runs against the grain of evidence so far produced at the Tribunal.
The APC spokesman further argued that implicit in Obanikoro’s statement is the insidious impunity of the PDP to present a fait accompli in a case that is ongoing in the court.
“The idea is to give a false impression that the PDP has secured a favourable judgment in a case in which evidence is still being produced by witnesses,” Oyatomi said, adding that, “the PDP’s bluff is characteristic of that party’s arrogance of impunity inspired by its gross misuse of power that has become notorious.”
The APC therefore urged that Obanikoro should be sanctioned by the Tribunal for contempt of court for unlawfully preempting the Tribunal’s decision on who actually won the August 9 governorship election in the State of Osun.
It would be recalled that the petitioners, in proving their case before the tribunal called 43 out of the over 500 witnesses they listed to testify in their favour.
Two of the witnesses called by petitioners, Samuel Oduntan and Pius Bakare who claimed to be forensic experts admitted faults before the tribunal in the purported analyses they carried out on the election materials for the petitioners to prove their case.
All other witnesses of the petitioners also told the court that they voted on the election day for parties of their choices, just as the PDP’s acting secretary, Bola Ajao said under cross-examination that he did not witness rigging.