A FIVE-member panel of justices of the Supreme Court on Tuesday affirmed the election of Ademola Adeleke as governor of Osun State.
The Supreme Court justices in their judgement upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal in Abuja which had on March 24, 2023 affirmed Adeleke’s victory at the governorship polls which held on 16th July 2022.
A three-member panel of justices of the Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, headed by Justice Terste Kume set aside Adeleke’s victory in its two-to-one split verdict delivered on 27th January, 2023, had in its decision in January declared former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola the winner of the election, and sacked Adeleke who was then just months in office.
However, in the minority decision, the second member of the tribunal, Justice P. A. Ogbuli, said the petitioners – Oyetola and the APC – failed to prove that there were cases of over-voting in the governorship election.
Justice Ogbuli noted that the petitioners’ witnesses in their testimony before the panel did not convince him that there was over-voting.
He said the petitioners should have brought the total registered voters to court to claim that over-voting occurred.
Adeleke however appealed against the decision of the tribunal, where his election was upheld. The Court of Appeal held that the tribunal was wrong in its conclusion that that the election in some parts of the state was marred by over-voting, the core legal issue on which Oyetola built his case.
The court held that “the burden of proving the allegations of over-voting lies squarely with the respondents (Mr Oyetola and the APC).”
“It is inconceivable to assume that the testimonies of the respondents’ witnesses had any probative value,” the appellate court held.
The Court of Appeal noted that Oyetola and the APC “did not tender the voter registers and Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS machines,” which captured data of eligible voters at the Osun governorship election.
“Though the 1st and 2nd respondents (Oyetola and APC) relied on BVAS reports obtained from INEC to prove over-voting, they did not, nonetheless, call petitioner’s witness 1 to speak to the reports, that is, Exhibits BVR reports from INEC’s back-end server.
“In their pleadings,” Oyetola and APC “alleged that the results recorded and transmitted directly from the polling units were not taken into account and therefore accredited voters recorded in Form EC8A from the disputed polling units do not tally with the number of BVAS for the same polling units.
“Strangely, the tribunal, in its judgment, only relied on the table set out in an address of counsel to hold that over-voting occurred in an election,” the Court of Appeal said.
