EKO NEWS
Lagos Tribunal Fixes Date For Judgement In Petitions Against Sanwo-Olu’s Victory
Eko Hot Blog reports that the Lagos State Governorship Election Tribunal is set to deliver its judgement on Monday, September 25, 2023.
The governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, made the disclosure in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, late Saturday night.
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“We have just been informed that judgement on our election petition at the tribunal will be delivered on Monday, the 25th of September,” he wrote.
We have just been informed that judgement on our election petition at the tribunal will be delivered on Monday, the 25th of September. #watchGODwork #ourlagos
— Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (@GRVlagos) September 23, 2023
Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner of the March 18 governorship election in Lagos State.
However, Rhodes-Vivour and the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Olajide Adediran, better known as Jandor, rejected the declaration and challenged it at the tribunal.
On Saturday, August 12, 2023, the tribunal, led by Justice Arum Igyen Ashom, reserved judgement after counsels for the petitioners and respondents adopted their final written addresses.
Adopting his address, Sanwo-Olu’s counsel, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, asked the court to dismiss the petitions of the Labour Party and that of the PDP for lacking in merit and a mere academic exercise.
He noted that there was no reference to the second respondent (Sanwo-Olu) but instead, the address dwelt on the third respondent (Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat).
Olanipekun said the matter of non-qualification of the deputy governor as claimed by the Labour Party was no issue as the allegation of his renunciation of Nigerian citizenship and the swearing of oath of allegiance to the United States were not sufficiently proven.
Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate in Lagos, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour
Olatunji Benson, counsel to Labour Party and its governorship candidate, Rhodes-Vivour, asked the tribunal to hold the position of his clients that the deputy governor did not qualify to contest and he and the governor should be removed from office and the petitioner declared as the governor of Lagos State.
Adopting his final written address, counsel to the PDP, Clement Onwuenwunor, argued that “the discrepancies in Sanwo-Olu’s West African Examination Council, WAEC statement of results and the names on the Master’s list provided by WAEC, which is also different from what is on his first and second-degree certificate has vindicated the Petitioner that his WAEC statement of result is in question and lied on oath, and therefore was not qualified to be governor.”
PDP governorship candidate in Lagos, Dr. Abdulazeez Olajide Adediran, aka Jandor
He also argued that Rhodes-Vivour whose name did not appear on the updated Membership Register of Labour Party presented to INEC and tendered at the tribunal, also was not qualified to run for the March 18th governorship election in Lagos.
Counsel for INEC, Charles Edosonwan, SAN, in the adoption of his final written address asked the tribunal to dismiss Rhodes-Vivour’s petition for lack of evidence.
He said, “One of the issues raised by the petitioner is whether the election was conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act? On this issue, we say that they have provided no scintilla of proof to show it wasn’t.
FURTHER READING
“A petition erected on such an allegation was sought to be proven by 10 witnesses in a state that has 13,325 polling units. The petition is materially challenged.”
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