Osun Election Petition: Adeleke Assembles 52 Lawyers

Osun State Governor-elect, Ademola Adeleke, has assembled about 52 lawyers to defend him at the Election Petition Tribunal in Osogbo.

Gatekeepers News reports that APC Candidate, Governor Adegboyega Oyetola, who came in second in the contested July 16 Governorship Election, has filed a petition to nullify Adeleke’s election.

Gatekeepers News reported that PDP candidate, Adeleke, emerged winner with 403,371 defeating his closest challenger, incumbent governor Oyetola, 375,027 votes and 13 other challengers.

Dr Alex Izinyon, Dr Paul Ananaba and Dr Onyeachi Ikpeazu are among the seven SANs defending Adeleke and other respondents.

While Izinyon leads another SAN and 16 other lawyers for PDP’s defense team, Ananaba with two other SANs are representing INEC’s 16-lawyer team and Ikpeazu would be leading another SAN with 10 other lawyers to defend Adeleke.

While INEC and the PDP have filed their defences, Adeleke is yet to file his defence.

Izinyon said in an interview ,“We have already filed a defence about two weeks ago.”

“We are leading the team and we filed a preliminary objection on 35 grounds but the petition cannot be entertained even on a preliminary issue.

Among the issues that Adeleke is not qualified and the issue they raised about his high school is being determined by the Court of Appeal which we started.”

“You cannot bring it in because it has been determined and we also raised several grounds against the competency of the petition itself; why it cannot see the light of day on the three so-called grounds that were filed. First was the issue of qualification, the other two were on majority lawful votes and non-compliance. We have dealt with that.”

“The case should be dismissed for lacking in merit. They itemised 10 Local Government Areas where they said there were overvoting out of 31 LGAs. They have even shot themselves on the leg because if you look at the vote coming out from there and compare with what they have, they cannot make a case out of it based on the grounds relied upon.”

A member of Oyetola’s legal team, Kunle Adegoke (SAN), said Adeleke had not responded.

“We are expecting Senator Ademola Adeleke to file a defence which he is yet to do. He avoided service for a long time before we got an order from the court to serve him by pasting it on the board of the court, which we did.”

“Now that he has been served, I believe that he must be working on his defence too. Hopefully, very soon, he will. Then, when he files, we will make the necessary application to the tribunal to start the pre-hearing session.”

“We filed on August 6 and he has not responded. It was about two weeks before we were able to serve him. He is just wasting time.” Adegoke said.

Oyetola, in his petition, said the election was fraught with certain irregularities, adding that Adeleke ought not to have been declared the winner because he submitted a forged certificate to INEC in order to contest the election.