The politics of the Southwest took another interesting turn at the weekend as an Appeals Court voided Olagunsoye Oyinlola’s three years and six months reign as governor of Osun State. The court ruled that the 2007 election was actually won by the candidate of the Action Congress (AC) candidate in the said election, Rauf Aregbesola, who was sworn in on Saturday as the governor of the state.
Prior to the ruling, however, about 15 members of the PDP had shown interest in the governorship race and obtained the N3 million intention of interest form sold by the party secretariat. The party had been consumed by the fight over which of these aspirants would get the ticket to replace Mr Oyinlola, until the whole house of cards came tumbling down.
The court ruling means there would not be any governorship election in Osun State next year, as Mr Aregbesola will serve out his four years. The state thus joins others such as Ondo, Edo,
Ekiti and Anambra where there would be no governorship election in 2011.
The judgement also increases the number of states lost by the PDP to the opposition ACN to three.
Delivering its judgement in Ibadan on Friday, the five-member panel led by Clara Ogunbiyi said the Election Petition Tribunal which heard the petition brought by Aregbesola erred by upholding the declaration of Mr Oyinlola by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner of the election.
For the ACN’s candidate, Friday’s judgment was a result of resilience and tenacity. Having failed before the initial tribunal, headed by Thomas Naron, the petitioner went to the Court of Appeal where a retrial of the case was ordered on the ground that the panel failed to admit useful evidences that could help in proper discharge of the matter.
Mr Aregbesola also suffered another loss when the matter was retried by the second tribunal, headed by Garba Alli.
The tribunal ruled that he failed to prove his allegations of over-voting, ballot stuffing and other electoral malpractices beyond reasonable doubt.
But succor came his way last Friday, when all his 26 grounds of appeal, collapsed into five, sailed through before the Appeal panel.
Delivering her lead judgement, Mrs. Ogunbiyi posited that the petitioner had provided enough grounds for the tribunal to rule in his favour, having presented evidences of discrepancies in the strength of registered voters and the number of votes recorded for the election.
Benefit of tenacity
Mr Aregbesola was contesting the votes in 10 out of the 30 local government councils of the state, where he alleged that there were irregularities and non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2006.
In the 4-hour 37- minutes judgment, Mrs Ogunbiyi, chided the lower tribunal for validating the election of Oyinlola, despite the barrage of substantial evidence and exhibits presented by Aregbesola’s counsel, saying that its failure to consider the evidences amounted to a display of jaundiced view of the whole matter. The other justices,
M. L. Garba, P.A. Galinge, C. C Nweze and A. Jauro also took turns to align with her.
In declaring Aregbesola, the court said “An order is hereby given that the votes in the 10 local governments are voided and the election of Olagunsoye Oyinlola is hereby nullified”. The presiding Justice continued by saying “in considering the reliefs sought, it is my opinion that the 2007 election in Osun state cannot be said to have complied with the Electoral Act. From the above, a candidate can only be declared winner if he polls the majority lawful votes. Having voided elections in the ten local governments, there is no doubt that the first appellant (Aregbesola) won the elections and has satisfied the requirements of the Electoral Act. Olagunsoye Oyinlola,
who was returned as governor of Osun state, was not validly elected as he did not score the highest number of votes as required. The first appellant having been shown to have won the highest votes is hereby declared as the governor of Osun state in the 2007 election.”
The controversial local governments are: Atakumosa, Ayedade, Boluwaduro, Boripe Ife Central, Ife East, Ife South, Ifedayo, Isokan and Odo Otin.
Source:234next.com
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