Call For Oyetola To End Legal Battle With Adeleke Over Osun Guber Rejected By Ex-Gov

The call by a civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), to former governor Adegboyega Oyetola to end the legal battle against his successor, Governor Ademola Adeleke, over the outcome of the Osun governorship election has sparked reactions.

The CSO through its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, at the weekend urged Oyetola to sheathe his legal swords and embrace Senator Ademola Adeleke as the duly elected governor in Osun State as ruled by the Appeal Court in Abuja on Friday.

Onwubiko noted that “Oyetola should stop his legal voyage of discovery and let Governor Ademola Adeleke concentrate to deliver good governance to the good people of Osun State. After all, the office is sacrificial and is meant to deliver social, economic, sustainable development and aggressive industrialisation to Osun and create enabling environment for economic growth.

“He needs to know that the technical knockout he suffered at the Court of Appeal is a warning sign that his legal action is frivolous, vexatious and is a total distraction.”

But speaking with THE WHISTLER on Sunday, Oyetola’s spokesperson, Ismail Omipidan, described the advice as an attempt to bully him and his supporters to silence, insisting such a piece of advice and opinion were made in bad taste.

Omipidan challenged HURIWA to provide any material, whether in print or in broadcast form, that suggested that Oyetola ever engaged in any verbal war since the litigation began in August last year.

He added that the association should direct its charge of verbal war at the Osun Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Governor Adeleke who allegedly did not only try to incite the public against the judiciary after the January 27 Tribunal judgement sacking him, but used several unprintable words to describe members of the Tribunal for the reason that the judgement did not favour him.

“But in our case, in spite of the fact that last Friday’s Appeal Court judgement did not go his way, he reinstated his belief in the judiciary to do justice in the matter and expressed his willingness to test the decision of the appellate court at the Supreme Court. Is that the kind of person you accuse of engaging in verbal war?

“At any rate, as a layman in law, I believe that the Supreme Court’s resolution of issue of voter register vis-a-vis the relevance of the register to prove over-voting in the era of BVAS will no doubt further deepen our legal jurisprudence on Electoral matters, especially taking into cognisance Sections 47, 51 and 64 of the Electoral Act 2022.”

He queried that, “We wonder why’s HURIWA did not ask Governor Adeleke to ‘stop his legal voyage’ when he lost at the Tribunal,”