Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke and the immediate past Governor, Gboyega Oyetola, and their supporters are anxiously awaiting the decision of the Appeal Court which on Monday, reserved judgement to decide on the Appeal by Adeleke challenging the decision of an Election Petition Tribunal which nullified his victory in last year’s governorship election.
A three-member panel led by Justice Mohammed Shuaibu agreed to fix the date to decide on the matter after taking the argument and adopting the briefs of all parties in the suit.
During proceedings on Monday, Counsel to Adeleke, Onyechi Ikpeazu, held that a member of the panel, who is also a chief magistrate, did not air her opinion during the Judgement delivery.
Rather, she only appended her signature and the constitution mandates her to have aired her views about the suit.
Counsel to Mr Oyetola, Lateef Fagbemi, however held that mere signing of the judgment, and not making any comment afterwards does not make the judgment invalid.
He noted that the case of over voting exceeded six polling units as claimed by the Appellant, adding that the anomaly was experienced in 744 polling units across the state.
Senator Adeleke who is candidate of the People’s Democratic Party had won the election held on 16 July, 2022, the result which was nullified on the grounds of over-voting.
Adeleke had in February, appealed the judgement of the Osun State Governorship Tribunal which nullified his election.
The tribunal ruled in favour of former governor Oyetola, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) who is seeking a second term in office.
While delivering the judgement, two out of the three-member panel of the tribunal held that Oyetola proved that there was over-voting in some of the polling units.
But Adeleke swiftly rejected the ruling and described it as a “miscarriage of justice”. Weeks later, the governor filed an appeal before the Akure division of the Court of Appeal.
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