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The court of appeal sitting in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, will this morning hear the appeal of Oloye Bayo Adelabu, governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, against the victory of Governor Seyi Makinde of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, this morning.
This newspaper recalls that Makinde had defeated Adelabu at the March 9, 2019 governorship election in the state. Makinde had to polled 515,621 votes to defeat Adelabu who had 357,982 votes.
Adelabu, not satisfied with the result of the election, had approached the election petition tribunal for redress. His prayers were however dismissed by the tribunal on 16th September, 2019.
Justice Muhammed Sirajo, who chaired the three-man tribunal, said Adelabu and the APC failed to prove that Makinde was not validly elected by majority of lawful votes.
Sirajo had said the testimonies of the ward and local government agents, called by the petitioners could not be relied upon.
The tribunal said the agents did not witness what happened at the polling units and their testimonies were based on what they were told by the polling units agents.
He said that 32 pieces of evidence, out of the 69 witnesses called by the petitioners were hearsay because the petitioners were ward and local government collation agents while the remaining 37 were polling unit agents.
Sirajo said that the petitioners called 69 witnesses and tendered 4,164 exhibits while the respondents called 15 witnesses, adding that the testimony of an eye witness must come from the polling units agents who witnessed all that happened from the beginning to the end during the election.
The tribunal said that the petitioners also failed to tender necessary documents that would assist members of the tribunal in proving ballot paper accounting.
He said that it was not only the responsibilities of petitioners to tender documents but also to prove that the alleged irregularities in the election substantially affected the outcome of the election.
