Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State and members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday in Osogbo staged a road show to celebrate the victory of the governor and the party at the election petition tribunal in spite of heavy down pour.
The August 9, 2014 Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal on Friday dismissed the petition of the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate in the election, Senator Iyiola Omisore.
In its judgement, read by the Chairman, Justice Elizabeth Ikpejime, the tribunal dismissed the petitioner’s allegations of malpractices and substantial non-compliance of the election with the Electoral Act as amended.
Addressing his supporters at the APC secretariat, Aregbesola said the tribunal verdict had shown that he won the election, adding that it was also a testimony that the election was free and fair.
Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr. Najeem Salaam, described Aregbesola’s victory as well deserved.
Salaam, in his congratulatory message , said the judgement had affairmed that the election was free, fair and credible.
Justice Ikpejime, who led other two panel members into the court room, pointed out that the petitioner had refused to prove his case before the tribunal convincingly that the election was characterised by fraud, irregularities, harassment and intimidation of voters with clear evidences.
She upheld the result of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) where APC polled
394,688 votes as against 292,747 votes polled by the PDP.
Ikpejime added that there was no proof on how voters were chased away from voting centres as alleged by the petitioner, adding that the petitioner’s claim that there were multiple votings on the day of the elections were not substantiated and that no single reference of who perpetrated multiple votes could be referred to during the cross examination of his witnesses.
On the petitioner’s allegation that there were cases of under aged persons used by the APC to perpetrate electoral fraud,the panel chairman maintained that nobody was mentioned or pin-pointed as an under aged person before the tribunal.
It will be recalled that the petitioner was contesting the election results of 17 local governments out of the 30 where election took place and called for its cancellation, saying the exercise was fraudulent and should be declared null and void.
Omisore argued that the election was not conducted according to the electoral law in the local governments.
The local governments in contest were Ayedaade, Atakumosa, Boripe, Ede North, Ede South, Ejigbo, Ifelodun, Ilesha East, Ilesha West, Irepodun, Irewole, Iwo, Obokun, Olaoluwa, Olorunda, Oriade and Osogbo.
To justify his claims that irregularities were recorded in the above mentioned local governments, the petitioner confronted the tribunal with 43 witnesses as against 28 presented by the APC and Aregbesola before the tribunal.
After thorough scrutiny and examination on the petitioner’s prayers, the tribunal chairman dismissed the claim for lack of merit, saying his prayers were not evidently proved before the tribunal
She further dismissed the allegation of the petitioner that duplicate copies of Forms EC8A, EC8B, EC8C and EC8D were not signed and stamped.
In her judgement after seven and a half hours, the panel chairman declared Aregbesola as winner in the election, insisting that he won the majority votes in the exercise.
