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The Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Ogun State chapter on Thursday faulted the judgment delivered by the Ogun State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal led by Justice Yusuf Halilu which confirmed the victory of Governor Dapo Abiodun’s victory at the March Governorship polls, describing it as a miscarriage of justice.
The Acting Publicity Secretary of the party, Olumide Balogun who spoke on behalf of the party at a press conference at the party’s Secretariat in Abeokuta, accused the Tribunal of delivering a “compromised judgement” and vowed to appeal the judgement.
The APM Governorship candidate, Hon. Adekunle Akinlade had gone to the Tribunal to challenge Abiodun’s victory, alleging that he colluded with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to rig the election in his favour and therefore want the Tribunal to rule in his favour. But the Tribunal in its ruling insisted that the petitioners failed to prove their case.
The APM claimed that Justice Halilu had earlier ruled in favour of the second respondent, Governor Abiodun in a related matter filed against him at the Federal high court in Abuja.
The party added that, Abiodun had once written to the registrar of the High court No 26 at the federal capital territory, a court where Justice Halilu is the judge.During the press conference, the APM showed two court orders to journalists allegedly filed by the Governor before Justice Halilu prior to the primary election, contesting the decision of the APC at the state level to have consensus arrangement.
Another letter allegedly written by the Governor seeking his recusal from another suit tagged : FCT/HC/CV/555/2018 equally said to have been filed before Justice Halilu.
The party party acting secretary however submit that, the party has been robbed of justice by the All Progressives Congress in connivance with the Chairman of the Panel.
His words, “I am happy to confirm that the Allied Peoples Movement, APM has decided to appeal the September 14th judgement that purportedly which ‘dismissed’ our petition.
“This decision was arrived at, yesterday evening after a number of questionable judicial proceedings was brought to the knowledge of our party leaders and stakeholders.
“A letter by the second respondent, Prince Dapo Abiodun dated 8th February, 2019 addressed to the registrar, High court No.26 of the federal capital territory Abuja, drawing the attention of the Ogun state governorship election tribunal Chairman to facts of his case has been discovered and prompted our legal team to dig further.“It is trite in law that a judge can not sit on a case twice, more so when in the first I stance, he had been accused of familiarity with a party in the case.
He not only heard the case in Abuja, he came to Ogun state to base his judgement on the Ogun state election on a matter he had earlier adjudicated upon.“As a result of these instructive findings, the APM and its gubernatorial candidate have come to the conclusion that there is a miscarriage of justice in the case we instituted on the Ogun state gubernatorial election.
We have a duty to appeal the judgement to protect the integrity or our judicial system and restore the mandate freely given by the good people of Ogun state to our party.
“We shall be approaching the court of appeal to establish our case that there has been miscarriage of justice and that the integrity of our judiciary has been compromised. We shall provide the details of our claims in court”, the party said.
