Osun: INEC Appeals Tribunal Judgement

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday has appealed to the recent judgement that discredited the Governor of Osun State, Ademola Adeleke, as the authentic winner of the July 16 gubernatorial election.

44 grounds were claimed by INEC before a Court of Appeal in Akure, in the Notice of Appeal filed on 30 January.

Subsequently, the electoral body urged the Court to sanction the judgement of the State Tribunal and also dismiss the suit by the APC and Gboyega Oyetola, against the sitting governor, for not having proper evidence.

It can be recalled that a court sitting led by Justice Tertsea Kume had disqualified
Adeleke as winner of the State gubernatorial election while declared Oyetola as the winner.

The court proceedings showed that there were 744 polling units which experienced over-voting during the election, the court proceeded to deducting the over voting scores from Adeleke and Oyetola respectively.

Upon this court arraignment, the minority judgement that was pronounced by Justice A Ogbuli, dismissed APC suit and held that Ademola Adeleke is the winner.

Prof. Paul Ananaba (SAN) and 17 other INEC counsel, argued that the Tribunal decision that Adeleke did not attain the lawful vote to win was a mistake, stressing that the two witnesses brought by the APC testified without a prove of evidence that the PDP didn’t win in the poll.

INEC counsel also claimed that the court erred in law as the court made use of a table contained in the final written address of the complainant to adjudicate the case.

They said it isn’t enough to determine that the election was over voting.