The Supreme Court of Nigeria has validated the election victory of Gboyega Oyetola as the governor of Osun State.
The apex court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal which nullified the March 22 judgement of the Osun State election petition tribunal.
The tribunal had declared Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party as the winner of the September 2018 election.
The Supreme Court in a split judgement on Friday agreed substantially with the Court of Appeal which ruled that a majority judgement delivered at the tribunal was a nullity.
The court said the judge who had read the majority judgement at the tribunal, Peter Obiora, was evidently absent on February 6, following the documents before the court.
It said the failure of Mr Obiora to be present on that day meant that the tribunal lacked the authorities to have given any judgment on the matter.
Two of the seven members of the Supreme Court panel, however, disagreed with the ruling.
The Supreme Court ruling was read by Bode Rhodes-Vivour.
The PDP candidate in the September 22 and 27 elections, Mr Adeleke, filed a petition at the election tribunal to challenge the victory of Mr Oyetola of the APC.
The judge upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal that the proper thing to have done in the absence of Justice Peter Obiorah was to start the entire trial afresh.
Four of the seven Justices of the apex court, sat to deliver the judgement, with Justice Rhodes Vivour presiding.
There was majority judgment of 5 and dissenting judgment of 2, ruling in Oyetola’s favour.
N.O.O Oke and Dr Paul Ananaba both Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) led the legal representation for Adeleke and PDP, while Abiodun Olaide announced appearance for Oyetola.
Adesina Agbede announced appearance for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The Appeal Court in Abuja had similarly declared Governor Oyetola as winner of the gubernatorial election.
A five-member panel of the court led by Justice Jummai Sankey delivered the lead judgement which favoured Oyetola on the grounds that the tribunal’s ruling read by Justice Peter Obiora amounted to judicial hearsay because he did not participate fully in the proceedings of the Tribunal.
The Appeal Court also said that the entire proceeding leading to the tribunal’s judgement could not stand because of its “faulty composition.”
Justice Sankey noted that the matter ought not to be returned to the tribunal for the fact that it was a post-election case where time for its adjudication could not be expanded or elongated. Therefore, she ruled that the appellate court could not order a fresh trial by the lower tribunal.
The lead judgement read by Justice Sankey was, however, dissented by a member of the five-man panel, Justice George Mbamba, who said the allegation that Justice Obiora did not attend all the sessions of the Tribunal was speculative.
She maintained that the records of the Tribunal’s proceedings indicated that the judge did participate in all the hearings because he signed at the beginning of the day’s proceedings.
On that basis, the dissenting judge not only dismissed Governor Oyetola’s appeal but slammed him with a cost of N200,000.
Despite Justice Mbamba’s dissenting judgement, Justice Sankey went further to resolve 11 other issues contained in the appeal in favour of Governor Oyetola, the appellant.
She declared that Senator Adeleke did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was a substantial non-compliance to the Electoral Act by the absence of the ballot paper records.
Earlier, the Osun State Election Tribunal declared Adeleke winner, saying that the September 27 rerun election in the state was illegal.
The tribunal also ruled that PDP and Adeleke proved that it was the State Returning Officer who cancelled the results in 7 Polling Units, adding that the petitioners proved that the Returning Officer had no power to cancel election results of a polling unit.
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 polling 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 appellate 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 challenged the decision at the Supreme Court.
