Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal will on October 26 begin a full hearing of the petition filed by Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) against the declaration of Senator Ademola Adeleke as governor-elect.
Lifestyle Nigeria reports that the tribunal made this pronouncement after concluding the pre-hearing session on Thursday.
The tribunal was asked to dismiss the applications of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), seeking the discontinuation of the petition brought to it by Governor Oyetola.
Counsel for Oyetola and the APC, Lasun Sanusi, SAN, at the sitting of the tribunal argued that Adeleke’s, PDP’s and INEC’s reliance on a Federal Court High judgment was nothing but an abuse of court process.
Sanusi argued this while replying to separate applications of the trio, seeking the dismissal of the petition based on the already appealed Federal High Court judgment disqualifying Oyetola from contesting the election.
Citing Supreme Court decisions in the case of Jegede Vs INEC, 2021, 14NWLR, Pt 1797, page 409, the counsel said the court had ruled that the signatories to the letter conveying the nomination of a candidate were not the nominators; rather, the nomination was done by party members at the congress, hence, the judgment could not stand.
Meanwhile, the counsel for INEC, Prof. Paul Ananaba, SAN; counsel for Adeleke, Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN and counsel for the PDP, Dr. Alex Izinyon, SAN, agreed that any decision the tribunal would take on the matter would have to wait until the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court decided on it.
They noted that they just decided to argue the applications to have it on record, a position which the tribunal agreed with and put on record.
Also, in other applications totalling nine by the three respondents, they asked the tribunal to strike out some paragraphs of the petition on the grounds that they were either lumped together or not related to the 2022 election.
In response to each of the applications, Sanusi said all the cases cited by the respondents were misconceived, adding that they were not applicable in the instance case.
He cited the case of INEC Vs Otti, 2016, 8NWLR, where the Supreme Court hinted that INEC was supposed to be neutral, arguing that all the processes filed before the panel have not portrayed the commission’s neutrality.
Sanusi further argued that the applications filed by the respondents were only meant to prevent the tribunal from focusing on hearing the petition on merit, asking the panel to dismiss the applications.
Subsequently, counsel for all parties in the matter agreed to begin the full hearing starting with the calling of witnesses on October 26.
In his ruling, the tribunal declared the pre-hearing session concluded and announced that the pre-hearing conference report would be presented on October 17.
