Following the hearing of lawyers’ closing written remarks on Friday, the Osun State elections petition tribunal reserved judgment.
Lateef Fagbemi SAN, the petitioners’ principal attorney, said that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) committed an error by producing many conflicting reports and referring to one as a synchronized report.
“The issue of result is different from accreditation. What is required is updating of result and not updating of accreditation”, Fagbemi posited.
He also alleged Governor Ademola Adeleke submitted a forged certificate saying “the testimonial says it was issued in 1988 about three years before Osun State came into existence when nobody knew that the state would be created in 1991, and urged the tribunal to nullify the declaration of Adeleke as the winner of July 16, 2022 governorship election.”
However, the lead counsel to Adeleke, Onyechi Ikpeazu SAN, argued that the requisite evidence to prove over-voting is register voters, entries in the BVR and form EC8A, noting that none of them established over voting.
Ikpeazu submitted that the petitioner did not call any document in prove of forgery and no witness from the institution to disown the documents that were allegedly forged.
“The effect of over voting in 6 polling units by law, is the cancellation of those polling units. We have done a table for the six polling unit, 1200 for PDP 700 for APC,” he added.
The tribunal led by Justice Tertsea Kume, adjourned the judgment indefinitely, saying the date would be communicated to the parties.
Former Governor Gboyega Oyetola had approached the elections tribunal following his defeat at the polls last year.
The ex-governor claimed the election was marred by irregularities and insisted on reclaiming his mandate.