Supreme Court Affirms Adeleke as Osun Governor
The Supreme Court has affirmed Ademola Adeleke of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as governor of Osun State.
In a unanimous decision delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the Court maintained that Oyetola of the APC failed to prove its case of improper accreditation and over-voting.
It held that though Oyetola alleged that Adeleke won through over-voting that occurred in 774 polling units in the state, he, however, failed to produce any Bimodal Voters Accreditation System, BVAS, a machine that was used in any of the polling units to prove his allegation.
“It is glaring that the Appellant did not provide in evidence, any BVAS, but sought to prove over-voting by means of a report of examination of INEC’s database or backend server”.
The apex court held that since it was not in dispute that the BVAS contain a record of accredited voters, “it is, therefore, the only direct and primary record of voters accredited at polling units on election day”.
It held that nothing in either Section 47 of the Electoral Act 2022 or Regulations 18- 23 of the INEC’s Regulations, made it mandatory for Presiding Officers in an election to transmit by BVAS, the number of accredited voters in each polling unit to the backend server.
It dismissed evidence of purported expert witnesses that testified in Oyetola’s favour.
The apex court said it found no reason to set aside the verdict of the Court of Appeal which upheld Adeleke’s election victory.
Recall that the Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal had on January 27, in a split decision, voided the declaration of Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as the winner of the gubernatorial election.
However, the Appeal Court on March 24th, affirmed Adeleke as the valid winner of the election, even as he struck out the petition that was lodged by Oyetola and the APC.
Aside from setting aside the judgement of the tribunal, the court, in its lead judgement that was delivered by Justice Mohammed Shuaibu, awarded a cost of N500,000 against the APC and its candidate, Gboyega Oyetola.
Dissatisfied with the judgement, both Oyetola and the APC took the matter before the Supreme Court where they also lost on Tuesday.
