27th January, 2023
Senator Ademola Adeleke has described the judgement of the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Osogbo as “a miscarriage of justice.”
The Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Tertsea Kume, earlier announced the nullification of the July 16 election that brought in Adeleke.
The judge said the governorship election did not comply with the electoral act.
He added that there was indeed over-voting in six local government areas in the state and declared Gboyega Oyetola as the winner of the election.
Meanwhile, Adeleke urged his supporters to remain calm.
He vowed to appeal the judgement at the Court of Appeal, insisting he remains the rightful winner of the July 16 election.
“I call on our people to remain calm. We will appeal the judgement and we are sure justice will be done. Let our people be reassured that we will do everything possible to retain this widely acclaimed mandate,” Governor Adeleke declared.
Back story
Oyetola and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), had in August 2022 called for the cancellation of the election over alleged overvoting and by-passing of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, among other alleged electoral frauds.
Oyetola said Adeleke was not duly elected by the majority of the lawful votes cast at the poll.
In the petition, INEC was tagged as the first respondent, Mr Adeleke, the second respondent, and the PDP the third respondent.
The INEC Chief Returning Officer for the Osun governorship election, Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, had announced that the PDP candidate scored 403,371 votes to emerge victorious.
Mr Ogundipe also announced the incumbent governor of the state and candidate of the APC, Mr Oyetola, as the first runner-up, having polled a total of 375,027 votes.
Displeased by the result, Mr Oyetola and his party told the tribunal that the winner of the poll was not qualified to contest the election.
“The Diploma Certificate of Penn Foster High School purportedly awarded on the 16th day of July 2021 and submitted by the 2nd Respondent along with his Form EC9 to the 1st Respondent, was forged.
“The Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice purportedly awarded by Atlanta Metropolitan State College and submitted by the 2nd Respondent along with his Form EC9 to the 1st Respondent, was forged,” he told the court.
The petitioners further claimed that “the second Respondent had also previously in 2018 submitted forged certificate to the 1st Respondent herein along with his Form C.F.001.”
The petitioners, according to the court papers, also argued that a “large number” of 749 polling units across 10 local government areas in the state did not get accredited by Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), thereby flaunting the electoral law.
The affected 10 local government areas were listed as; Egbedore, Ejigbo, Ila, Ilesha West, Irepodun, Obokun, Olorunda, Osogbo, Ede North and Ede South.
INEC declared the total votes cast for the PDP and APC as 403,364 and 314,723 respectively.
But Mr Oyetola and the APC, in their 670-page document filed before the election petition tribunal, flagged 60,504 of the APC votes and 113,151 of the PDP votes as invalid votes, saying they were not accredited through the BVAS and should be deducted from both parties’ total votes.
According to the petitioners, the deduction of 60,504 votes from the APC’s 375,227 votes would leave the party with 314,723 votes.
Mr Oyetola said that if 113,151 is deducted from the PDP’s 403,364 total votes, the party will be left with 290, 213 votes.
This, the petitioners posited, would earn them victory at the tribunal.