Tribunal declares Ademola Adeleke the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the rightful winner of the September 2018 governorship election in Osun state.
The Tribunal declared Ademola Adeleke winner of the election after rejecting the preliminary objection filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate in the election, Governor Gboyega Oyetola, as well as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The three defendants claimed that the petition of the PDP and its candidate was incompetent and the tribunal lacked jurisdiction to hear it.
Delivering a ruling on the preliminary objection, Justice Obiora Obi who is a member of the three-man Tribunal held that the petition was competent.
He also stated that the Tribunal has the jurisdiction to hear and determine it.
Delivering the lead ruling of the three-man tribunal, Chairman Ibrahim Sirajo, held that the objections were misconceived and struck them out.
The Tribunal held that the CTC should and must be an exact replica of the EC8A pink copies.
The discrepancies must therefore be explained and justified by INEC.
In this instance, the tribunal held, INEC failed to explain nor justify the alterations and that they failed to call any witness to justify the alterations.
The tribunal held that the attempt to explain the alterations on the basis of mere corrections of errors is not acceptable and the fact that the said errors were consistently made in the disputed areas means it was a deliberate action taken