Osun: Supreme Court fixes Tuesday for judgement

The Supreme Court will, tomorrow by 2pm deliver judgement in the appeal brought before it by the immediate past governor of Osun State, Adegboyega Oyetola and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) challenging the judgement of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which affirmed Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the validly elected governor of Osun State.

The apex court on Monday, slated the date and time to lay to rest the legal tissue over the governorship seat of Osun State after parties in the appeal adopted their written address and oral submissions in the matter.

Oyetola and his party, in their appeal numbered, SC/CV/510/2023, are praying the apex court to set aside the decision of the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, which voided the judgment of the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal, which returned Oyetola as winner of the July 16, 2022 governorship election.

INEC had last year declared Adeleke as winner of the election having scored majority of the votes cast in the election, however the tribunal in its split judgment of two-to-one delivered in January, held that Oyetola and not Adeleke won majority of the lawful votes in the election.

Oyetola and APC in their appeal filed on their behalf by their lead counsel, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), want the apex court to determine whether the appellate court was right “in declaring as nullity the judgment of the tribunal delivered on January 27 notwithstanding the earlier resolution of the same court that Section 294(1) of the Constitution is inapplicable to a tribunal”.

They also want the court to decide whether the lower court was right in concluding that they did not prove the allegation of over voting in favour of Adeleke.

While praying the court to allow the appeal, Oyetola and his party argued that the appellate court wrongly declared as null and void the proceedings and judgement of the Osun state Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.

“That the court below wrongly held that the Appellants did not prove non-compliance and failed to give appropriate consideration to the Appellants’ case on majority of lawful votes cast”