Tribunal decides Aregbesola, Omisore’s fate Friday

The Election Petitions Tribunal hearing matters
arising from Osun State governorship election of
August 9, 2014 is set to deliver its final judgment
on Friday, February 6, 2014.
The Secretary of the Tribunal, Mr. Adamu Aliyu,
confirmed the date on the telephone to our
correspondent in Osogbo on Wednesday.
He said, “The judgement is coming up on Friday,
February 6, 2014″
The governorship candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party, Senator Iyiola Omisore, had
dragged Governor Rauf Aregbesola of the All
Progressives Congress to the tribunal.
The Chairman of the panel, Justice Elizabeth
Ikpejime, had on January 23, during the adoption
of written addresses by all parties, adjourned
indefinitely for the final judgment.
Omisore, the PDP candidate who came second
during the poll with 292,747 votes against
Aregbesola’s 394,684 votes prayed the tribunal to
sack the incumbent governor and declare him the
winner of the election.
Omisore’s counsel, Dr. Alex Izinyon ( SAN), had
told the tribunal during the address stage that
Aregbesola admitted that he scored 234,971 votes
and not the the number of votes credited to him by
the INEC in his final address.
Chief Akin Olujinmi ( SAN), who represented the
first respondent explained that Aregbesola did not
admit that he did not score up to the number of
votes credited to him.
He stated that what the table meant was that
“assuming with out conceding, the tribunal cancels
the result in the disputed units, the first respondent
would still have won with the new figure.”
He argued that the petitioner failed to prove his
petition.
The counsel referred to the objection of the first
respondent to the petition filed at the hearing
stage, saying he adopted the two applications filed
to challenge the competence of the petition.
Based on this, the first respondent urged the panel
to strike out the petition.
The counsel argued that the petitioner dumped the
ballot papers used for the election and other
electoral materials on the tribunal without
demonstrating to the panel how they related to the
case.
He further stated that the duplicate copies of form
EC8A tendered by the petitioner were inadmissible,
adding that those who tendered them were not the
makers of the documents.