Osun Election Tribunal To Deliver Judgement Soon The Osun State election petitions tribunal handling the petition challenging the victory of Governor Rauf Aregbesola and his party, All Progressives Congress (APC) at the last August 9th governorship election has adjourned indefinitely for judgment. Delivering her ruling after the parties in the case had adopted their final written addresses, the chairman of the three-man panel, Justice Elizabeth Ikpejime said the tribunal will soon deliver the judgment in the case. Senator Iyiola Omisore is praying the tribunal to cancel the results of the election in some polling units in 17 local government councils of the state and declare him the lawful winner of the election. Counsel to Senator Omisore, Alex Izilyon (SAN) while addressing the panel said the first respondent in the case, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and his party (APC) failed to prove their defence beyond reasonable doubt that the said election was not manipulated in their favour. He insisted that the petitioner’s evidences were weighty enough to declare Omisore the winner of the election. According to him, the evidence before the court has shown that his client has majority of lawful votes and he should be declared the winner of the election. In looking at preponderance of evidence before the tribunal, he said his client has more evidence on the scale, while the respondents have none. But Governor Rauf Aregbesola urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition for lack of merit, baseless and a waste of time. Represented by Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN) and Mr Rotimi Akeredolu, Charles Edohor submitted that the specific allegations upon which the grounds of the petition were predicated are criminal in nature, adding that the petitioners have failed to prove the allegations beyond reasonable doubt. They further submitted that the petitioners have failed to prove the liability of the first and second respondents in respect of the allegation beyond reasonable doubt as required by the law. “Also submit that the specific allegations of sponsorship of on air advertisement of campaign on election day, intimidation, molestation and harassment, over-voting, multiple voting and voting by proxy, lack of proper accreditation, voting by ineligible persons and disenfranchisement of eligible voters, arbitrary allocation of votes, irreconcilable entries, discrepancy and mutilation of results, lack of proper accounting of ballot papers, campaign and inducement of voters and non-stamping of Forms EC8A as well as other sundry allegation like multiple registration were not established by the petitioners.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 20:27:59 +0000
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