Court of Appeal floors Adeleke declaring Oyetola the winner of Osun State governorship election

GOVERNOR Gboyega Oyetola has won the latest round in the battle to govern Osun State after the Federal Court of Appeal declared him the winner of the September 2018 Osun State gubernatorial election earlier on today.

In a highly complicated and complex political drama, Senator Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was declared the winner of the election  by the Osun State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abuja on March 22. This overturned the declaration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) which had originally declared Governor Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the winner with a total of 255,505 votes while Senator Adeleke scored 255,023 votes.

Inec had originally declared Governor Oyetola the winner after holding a re-run in Osogbo, Orolu, Ife North and Ife South local government areas, after it which it announced him victor with a total of 255,505 votes while Senator Adeleke scored 255,023 votes. Senator Adeleke had, however appealed the declaration and won it based on the argument that the re-run was not necessary and he won the original contest with 353 votes.

Governor Oyetola, however appealed the decision of the lower court and today, the Federal Court of Appeal, sitting in Abuja upheld his decision. A five-member panel led by Justice Jummai Sankey delivered the lead judgement which favoured Governor Oyetola on the grounds that the election tribunal’s ruling read by Justice Peter Obiora amounted to judicial hearsay.

According to the Court of Appeal, the entire proceeding leading to the tribunal’s judgement could not stand because of its faulty composition. Justice Sankey noted that the matter ought not to be returned to the tribunal for the fact that it was a post-election case where time for its adjudication could not be expanded or elongated.

Therefore, she ruled that the appellate court could not order a fresh trial by the lower tribunal. However, the lead judgement read by Justice Sankey was not unanimous, as one member of the five-man panel, Justice George Mbamba, said the allegation that Justice Obiora did not attend all the sessions of the tribunal was speculative.

He maintained that the records of the tribunal’s proceedings indicated that the judge did participate in all the hearings because he signed in at the beginning of the days’ proceedings. On that basis, the dissenting judge not only dismissed Governor Oyetola’s appeal but slammed him with costs of N200,000.

Despite Justice Mbamba’s dissenting judgement, however, Justice Sankey went further to resolve 11 other issues contained in the appeal in favour of Governor Oyetola, the appellant. She declared that Senator Ademola Adeleke, who is the petitioner, did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was substantial non-compliance to the Electoral Act by the absence of the ballot paper records.