Ademola Adeleke, the people’s democratic party governorship candidate in the 2018 Osun governorship election, may have to wait a little longer to actualize his dreams of becoming the number 1 citizen of the state.
This is because an Abuja Court of Appeal, has reserved judgment in the four appeals filed against the judgment of the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal. Last month, the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal set aside the election of Governor of Osun state, Adegboyega Oyetola on the ground of irregularities.
The tribunal ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to issue certificate of return to Senator Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, after declaring him winner of the election. The five-man panel of justices of the appeal tribunal led by Justice Jummai Sankey, said that the dates for judgment would be communicated to parties, shortly after counsel to parties adopted and argued their briefs of argument in the various suits.
The first suit with number CA/A/EPT/246/2019 which was filed by Osun State Governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, has candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Osun governorship election, Senator Ademola Adeleke, the PDP, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as 1st to 4th respondents respectively.
The second with number CA/A/EPT/256/2019, filed by the APC has Adeleke, PDP, INEC and Oyetola as 1st to 4th respondents. While the third appeal filed by INEC and marked: CA/A/EPT/259/2019, has Adeleke, PDP, Oyetola and APC as respondents, the fourth marked: CA/A/EPT/295/2019, filed by Adeleke has Oyetola, APC, INEC as respondents.
While the first three appeals are challenging the majority judgment of the tribunal, the fourth which is a cross appeal is seeking to upturn the decenting and minority judgment of the tribunal. Both Oyetola and Adeleke had appealed the judgment of the Osun tribunal on the governorship poll held on September 22, 2018 and the rerun therefore held on September 27, 2018.
Oyetola and the APC in their appeals are asking the appeal tribunal to set aside the majority decision that nullified Oyetola’s victory and return Adeleke as the lawful winner of the poll, Adeleke on the other hand is asking the tribunal to uphold his victory as declared by the tribunal and upturn the minority Judgment which had dismissed his petition for lacking merit.
The petition tribunal had in a split decision of two-one in its March 22, 2019, judgment, voided the election of Oyetola and the APC in the Osun governorship poll. It in addition ordered INEC to withdraw the Certificate of Return issued to Oyetola and issue a fresh one to Adeleke having won majority of the lawful votes cast at the poll.
