The petition filed against thevictory of Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun stateis just ”a piece of paper”, according to the legal team of the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC in the state.
A member of the team, Adekunle Adegoke, a Senior Advocate of Nigerian, SAN made the assertion on Monday, according to The Punch newsapers, few hours after reports that the APC had filed a petition against the victory of Governor Adeleke who was declared winner in the August 15, 2026 governorship election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
According to the senior lawyer, the petition was filed without the authorisation of the APC governorshipcandidate in the election, Bola Oyebamiji, who he said had earlier agreed not to challenged the victory of the Accord candidate victory in the court by the APC legalteam.
Adegoke pointed out that the legal team had advised Oyebamiji not to go to court after Adeleke was announced as the winner, because it felt there was no compelling reason to do that, and the need to allow the state to enjoy peace after the keenly contested election.
He explained that it was on that basis that the APC candidate in the election congratlated Governor Adeleke, wondering why some persons now turned around to file the petition, which he said was not instigated by Oyebamiji.
There was no way the APC candidate could have gone behind the legal team to challenge the election, after it was agreed that the matter should not be filed in the court, he said, stressing that Oyebamiji as a ”man of honour” will never do that.
Adegoke said, “Right from the second day of the election, at the level of the legal team being led by about 4 Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Dr Biodun Layoonu (SAN), Dr Yomi Aliyu (SAN), myself, Kunle Adegoke (SAN) and Dr Muritala Abdulrasheed (SAN). We also have other legal luminaries, Professors of law in the legal team, Prof Mojeed Alabi and many others, and we advised our client that the best in this circumstance is for us not to go to the tribunal.
“The legal team has been in existence for more than seven years now. When we are going into an election, and the result of the election is being announced, we know where there are loopholes, we know what we can challenge. At this particular point in time, we want to prove to the minds of the people that at the level of the APC, we are not termagants; we are not just litigious people who are just interested in causing brouhaha in the populace. We don’t have anything personal against Nurudeen Adeleke the governor, or any other person in another party, whether PDP or Accord.
“We are principled, and when we want to challenge or fight for something, we fight on the basis of principle. That is one thing we want to make clear to the people. And when we decided that we are not going to the Tribunal, we needed to let our client understand why we had taken that decision. We took our client through a gamut of our findings. It’s not like maybe the election was free; it doesn’t mean there were no malpractices. There are valid grounds to challenge the result of the election, and we decided to let the populace rest.
“Let there be some peace and our client said yes; if it’s going to take us another four years to get things together for the people of Osun, let us allow it. And that is the decision we took.
Right from the second day, 16th of August, when the result of the election was announced, that is why we allowed time to play out a little before our client came out and congratulated the Governor Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke,” Adegoke said.
He added, “Our client, having willingly, without pressure, without duress, congratulated Governor Adeleke, do you now think it will be legitimate as a man of honour for Asiwaju Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji to go behind and authorise the filing of a petition? The petition is just a piece of paper without good substance. No good petition will come from a seasoned election petition lawyer that will contain such a penchant for context. It is never done. I want to be on record that the APC legal team has denounced the bundle of papers filed by some individuals masquerading as APC lawyers. It was not authorised by APC as a party or its candidate.”
The magazine had earlier reported that the election umpire,INEC declared Governor Adeleke winner of the election after he scored over 510 votes to defeat the APC candidate who polled less than 450, 000 votes.
Oyebamiji and his party had since congratulated Adeleke acknowledging his victory in the election.
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