Osun election petition tribunal adjourns for judgement

The trial of the governorship election petition in Osun State has been adjourned for trial after counsel for the parties delivered their final address.

The president of the court, Tertsea Kume, on Friday said the date of the adjournment would be communicated to the parties.

The hearing which started at 10:34 and ended at 19:24 was conducted under tight security.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) and Gboyega Oyetola who is the party’s governorship candidate are challenging for victory Ademola Adeleke People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

The three-member court will begin hearing election petition cases in August 2022.

The petitioners’ main argument is that Mr. Adeleke allegedly falsified the academic credentials he submitted for the election and that there was over-voting in 749 polling units during the election.

For more than five months, counsel for both parties have argued over the issues involved in the petitioners’ case

At Friday’s meeting, both parties received their final written address.

BVAS machine

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) counsel, Paul Ananaba, told the court that the petitioners were not accurate with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine reports.

Mr. Ananaba said the BVAS report provided by the petitioners was incomplete because the INEC server had not completed the synchronization process when it was issued.

Therefore, he asked the court to reject the petitioner’s claim of over-voting using the BVAS machine as a basis.

But the APC counsel, Lateef Fagbemi, said the issue of synchronization was not recognized by the electoral law.

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Mr. Fagbemi said the analysis of the election results and the report from the BVAS machine showed that there was over-voting in some polling units.

He also prayed the court to dismiss the respondents’ claim.

Forgery

Onyechi Ikpeazu, Ademola Adeleke’s counsel, insisted that the petitioners’ claims of forgery had not been proven with documentary evidence.

He told the court that the petitioners in their cross-examination should invite people who attended or worked at the institutions Mr. Adeleke claimed to have graduated from in the United States so that they could confirm that he had graduated.

However, Akin Olujimi, Mr. Oyetola’s counsel, said the testimony given by Mr. Adeleke did not show that he attended the Muslim Grammar School in Ede.

Mr. Olujimi noted that the testimony was published in 1988, three years before Osun State came into being.