Posted on: 08:29 Sat, 07 Feb 2015


Osun State Gover­norship Election Petition Tribunal yesterday dismissed the petition filed by Senator Iy­iola Omisore, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the victory of Mr. Rauf Aregbesola in the August 9, 2014, governorship election in the state.
The tribunal led by the chair­man, Justice Elizabeth Ikpejieme, in a judgment, which lasted about seven hours ruled that the petition­er failed to prove his case by not providing reliable evidences.

The PDP candidate is challeng­ing the election before the panel in some units and wards in 17 local government councils of the state.
Omisore and his party, PDP, al­leged that the election was charac­terised by irregularities and manip­ulation in favour of APC and Areg­besola, thus, asking the tribunal to cancel the election results in the affected local government areas.

He also prayed the tribunal to declare him winner of the election, saying he had the majority credible votes, stressing that the votes cast for Aregbesola and APC were not valiid and should be nullified.

The chairman of the tribunal in her judgment on the eligibility of the petition ruled that the appellant failed when it did not file his reply within the five days stipulated un­der the law.

The tribunal held that the five days the appellant had commenced on the day they were served on Oc­tober 9, 2014, lapsed on October 13, saying the days under the law included Sunday, which the appel­lant tried to exclude from the five days.

She pointed out that the Appel­lants, having filed the reply on Oc­tober 14, fell foul of the law, noting that the law is settled when it stated the method and dates to follow in filling reply.

On the issue of the Appellants abandoning their case, the tribunal noted that for the purpose of fair hearing, the tribunal would go on in delivering its judgment on the substantive case.

Delivering judgment on the substantive suit, the tribunal held that the petitioner failed to prove alleged harassment, intimidation , molestation, over voting, voting by proxy, inducement, improper accreditation, alteration of results, irreconcilable figures in the local governments under review.
The tribunal also held that the evidence led by the petitioners in Ayedaade Local Government Area, lacked any degree of speci­ficity and cannot be relied on by the tribunal as they failed com­pletely to prove any of the allega­tions.

The chairman held that for the petitioner not to have satisfactorily proved his case in any of the 17 lo­cal governments, the panel has no reason to void the election.

The tribunal therefore returned Mr. Rauf Aregbesola as the duly elected governor in the election and dismissed the case of the pe­titioner.