Supreme Court Affirms Adeleke Osun State Governor
Senator Ademola Adeleke was on Tuesday affirmed as authentic governor of Osun State by the Supreme Court following 10 months of legal battle.
Daily Report Nigeria reports that the apex dismissed the disputes put forward by Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress and immediate past governor of the state.
The lengthy legal battle began with the sacking of the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate by the Osun Governorship Tribunal in January.
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The tribunal had cited over-voting in 744 polling units as reason for sacking Adeleke, who was declared winner of the July 16, 2022 poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
However, the sacking of the former senator was overturned by the Court of Appeal in March 2023, using records from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine and voter register as evidence.
Lead lawyer for Adeleke, Onyechi Ikpeazu SAN, had argued that Oyetola presented incorrect polling unit results that were uploaded on INEC’s back-end server before the Tribunal.
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Subsequently, a three-man panel of the Court of Appeal ruled that the tribunal acted wrongly by judging over-voting with oral witnesses without considering information on the BVAS machine and voters register.
The declaration by the appellate court was affirmed by the Supreme Courtc which ruled that Adeleke legally won the Osun State election.
Delivering judgment on Tuesday, the five-man Supreme Court panel led by Justice John Okoro judged BVAS as the focal point of Adeleke’s case.
The apex court held that based on INEC regulations and guidelines, election results could only be collated if the results agree with the figures in the BVAS and the ones transmitted to the INEC Results Viewing Portal, IRev.
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“It is glaring that the appellant did not produce any BVAS machine report as evidence to buttress his claim.
“It is not in dispute that the BVAS accredits voters, it is therefore the only direct and primary record of voters on election day,” the apex court ruled.
