Oyetola floors Adeleke at Supreme Court

Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress will remain the governor of Osun State.

The Supreme Court gave a finality to the dispute Friday morning in Abuja, ruling 5-2 in favour of Oyetola and against Senator Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party.

Justice Bode Rhodes Vivour read the majority judgment and declared that Oyetola was duly elected in the September 2018 election.

Rhodes-Vivour held that the proceedings and judgment of the trial tribunal was a nullity on the grounds that Justice Peter Obiorah was absent in court on Feb. 6.

The two dissenting judges are Justice Kumai Akaah and Justice Paul Galinje.

The election in September gave Oyetola, the narrowest victory ever in a governorship election in Nigeria. He defeated Adeleke with 255,505 votes, after a rerun election in some polling units on 27 September, where election did not take place in the first poll. Adeleke who had led with even a much narrower margin in the first poll on 22 September, scored 255,023 votes.

Adeleke opted to challenge Oyetola’s victory at the election tribunal.

The tribunal declared him the winner, but Oyetola took his case to the Appeal Court, which ruled in his favour. Adeleke asked for Supreme Court final declaration on the dispute.

The Peoples Democratic Party and Adeleke, had approached the apex court following the decision of the appeal court to pronounce Gov. Oyetola as the winner of the election.

Adeleke prayed the court to uphold the ruling of the Osun Governorship Election Petition Tribunal that pronounced him as the legal winner of the election and discard the judgment by the appeal court.

Oyetola’s lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) together with the counsel representing the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mr Yusuf Ali (SAN), and the All Progressives Congress counsel, Olumide Olujinmi, all urged the apex court to dismiss the appeal and retain Oyetola as the governor.

On May 9, the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal nullified the judgment of the Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which declared Adeleke, as the winner of the September 2018 poll.

In a split judgment of four-to-one, the five-man panel led by Justice Jummai Sankey, the Court of Appeal upheld the appeal filed by Gov. Oyetola, challenging the verdict of the tribunal and affirmed him as duly elected

Delivering the majority judgment of the four members of the panel, the court resolved 10 out of the 12 issues in favour of Oyetola and the two others in favour of Ademola and his PDP.

The Court of Appeal’s majority judgment was primarily anchored on the alleged absence of a member of the tribunal, Justice Obiorah, who read the lead majority verdict of the tribunal, during the Feb. 6, 2019 proceedings of the tribunal.

Justice Sankey held that absence of Justice Obiorah on that date nullified the entire proceedings and the verdict of the tribunal.

Three other members of the panel, Justices Abubakar Yahaya, Isaiah Akeju, and Bitrus Sanga, agreed with Justice Sankey.

But a member of the panel, Justice George Mbaba, dissented from the majority judgment, holding that the alleged absence of Justice Obiorah from the Feb. 6, 2019 proceedings of the tribunal was mere speculation.