Osun Governorship: Supreme Court declared Oyetola the winner, Oyetola’s

The Supreme Court has given a final ruling between two candidates, senator Adeleke and Oyetola.

The ruling end up by declaring Governor Oyetola as the authentic winner of the election.

A seven-member panel of the court, led by Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria Ibrahim Tanko, slated Friday for judgement on the matter after entertaining arguments from parties on June 17.

The PDP candidate in the September 22 and 27 elections, Ademola Adeleke, filed a petition at the Election Petition Tribunal to challenge the victory of the governor-elect, Gboyega Oyetola, of the APC.

The main election was held on September 22 while a supplementary election was held on September 27 in seven polling units.

The electoral commission, INEC, declared Mr Oyetola winner of the election after the supplementary poll.

Mr Adeleke, who claimed he polled the highest number of votes in the election, asked the tribunal to cancel the victory of Mr Oyetola and declare him the winner of the election.

The Osun tribunal ruled in Mr Adeleke’s favour and declared him the winner of the election. In a split judgment of two to one, the tribunal ruled that INEC was wrong to have ordered a rerun election. It nullified the rerun.

The court also ruled that INEC did not comply with its guidelines on results from 17 polling units.

The tribunal then deducted the results of both parties from the declared total of votes in the affected 17 poling units.

According to the tribunal, the PDP won the election with 254,698 votes, while the APC came second with 253,452 votes.

The tribunal also said that the PDP would still have won the poll even if it had opted to validate the supplementary election.

But in a contrary opinion in May, the Court of Appeal ruled that “the tribunal was in patent error when it set aside the rerun.”

The supreme court, which had also delivered its verdict in a split decision of four to one, ruled that the judge who issued the majority decision at the tribunal, Peter Obiora, was absent on February 6, 2019, when a major discussion on the issue of none-compliance was tabled before the tribunal; and could therefore not have viewed the issue squarely.

Apparently dissatisfied, Mr Adeleke approached the Supreme Court which will was rule today and declared APC the winner of the election.