Buruji Kashamu sacked from Senate

On the part of the petitioner, total valid votes was 70,677 compared to 84,001 recorded by INEC, added that the margin of winning votes is just 5,179.

“The first respondent did not score enough votes to be able to declared him winner,comparing the margin win vote to total votes of 37,008 that are invalid.

“For avoidance of doubt,we cannot cancel the whole Senatorial election because of that and the margin of win is just 5,179 votes.It is not enough to declare him winner.

“The election is a nullify in line with Section 140 (2) and 140 (3), but in this regard,we are looking at 140 (2). We hereby order fresh election in the affected polling units. We do not feel comfortable to nullify election in Ogun East Senatorial District.

“The election of the first respondent is hereby set aside as Senator representing Ogun East District and ordered that 3rd respondent conduct a fresh election into the polling units which elections have been cancelled and in doing that, must take cognisance of the lawful votes,”he declared.

The tribunal affirmed that the valid votes of 146,533 be set aside while results from the 110 polling units in fresh election will be added to the already valid votes.

At the hearing on 3 August, all the counsels in the matter adopted their final addresses and made final submission to further convince the court on their cases.

Counsel to the petitioner, Yusuf Ali (SAN) argued that result sheets made available to agents at the polling units were different from the Certified True Copies,CTC, brought before the court by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

In his alternative prayer, Ali also prayed the court to nullify Kashamu’s election on ground that Dapo Abiodun won the majority valid votes, adding that the Senator was not qualified to contest the election in the first place because of his alleged drug related cases against him.

“We have the alternative prayers, one was that if we do the proper calculation of the valid votes, Dapo Abiodun would have the majority of valid votes, and we said based on that, nullify the election of Buruji and declare Dapo Abiodun the winner.