Tribunal Affirms Makinde Governor Of Oyo

The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Ibadan has affirmed the electoral victory of Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State.

Makinde contested the election under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

The tribunal dismissed the petition of his opponent, Adebayo Adelabu of the All Progressives Congress, APC.

The unanimous judgment of the panel was read by Justice Suraju Muhammadu, who chaired the tribunal. The tribunal also had Justices Musa Bazza and Elizabeth Orji as members.

Ruling over one of the claims raised by Adelabu, the tribunal held that he failed to “prove substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act”.

Also, the tribunal ruled that the APC and its candidate failed to prove the allegation of corrupt practices, overvoting, improper accreditation, inaccurate ballot counting and non-compliance with the 2010 Electoral Act as amended.

Adelabu and his party had filed the petition before the tribunal on March 29, 2019.

The tribunal had in August admitted the final written addresses of the trio of Makinde, Adelabu and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

The counsel to INEC had asked the tribunal to dismiss the petition for being grossly unmeritorious and lacking in substance.

He insisted that the petitioners complained of irregularities in 1,334 polling units and only called 38 polling unit agents out of which majority of them confirmed that the election conducted by INEC complied strictly with the electoral act.

The counsel to the governor had also faulted the relief by the petitioners claiming they amount to hearsay and asked the court to dismiss the petition.

But the counsel to Adelabu and the APC, Yusuf Alli insisted that the petition is meritorious and that other witness not called had their statement properly laid before the tribunal.

INEC returned Makinde as the winner of the keenly-contested election, having scored a total of 515,621 votes. The total number of votes credited to Adelabu was 357,982. The breakdown of the results showed that Makinde won the gubernatorial election in 28 out of the 33 local government areas of the state, while Adelabu won in the remaining five local government areas.