Osun gov'ship: Appeal court affirms Adeleke’s election

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has upheld the election of Governor Ademola Adeleke as governor of Osun State.

A three-member panel of justices presided over by Justice Mohammed Lawal Shuaibu, yesterday held that the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate and former governor, Gboyega Oyetola, failed to prove allegations of over-voting against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

However, Oyetola’s lawyer informed journalists that the legal team would study the judgement to take further steps on whether to appeal or not.

In the unanimous verdict, the appellate court also awarded the sum of N500,000 cost against the APC and its candidate.

The appellate court also dismissed Oyetola’s cross-appeal challenging the authenticity of the West African School Certificate (WAEC) deposed by Adeleke in his Form CF001 in 2018.

The panel said Oyetola and the APC failed to tender sufficient evidence that the report of the accreditation of voters in the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the results in form EC8As from polling units being challenged did not tally.

The panel, however, dismissed Adeleke’s contention that the comments by the chairman of the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, Tetsea Kume, in a majority judgement quoting Kiss Daniel’s song that he (Adeleke) ‘Cannot ‘go lo lo lo lo’ and buga won’ as the duly elected governor of Osun State in the July 16, 2022 election, did not amount to bias.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Adeleke the winner with 403,371 votes as against Oyetola’s 375,027 votes.

However, Oyetola’s figures rose to 314, 921, while Adeleke’s came down to 290, 266 after the tribunal deducted votes in some polling linked with over-voting in Ede South Local Government Area.