The Ogun State Governorship
Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abeokuta on Friday struck out the
petition by the Labour Party challenging the victory of Governor Dapo Abiodun.
The tribunal also awarded a
N500,000 compensatory fine against the Labour Party, to be paid to Governor
Abiodun. The tribunal predicated its judgement on the absence of the petitioner
in court and neither was it represented by any counsel.
The Labour party had gone to the
tribunal to challenge the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for
alleged unlawful exclusion of the party’s candidate from contesting in the last
election.
Reacting to the ruling, Abiodun
declared that “the people spoke with their votes on March 9 and today the
Tribunal confirmed it. That is democracy at work. So, I believe that puts an
end to the petition and we pray that petition will rest in perfect peace.
“Now, we expect all political
parties and other purpose-driven stakeholders to join hands with us to build
our future together.”
Speaking with newsmen after the
judgement, Prof Taiwo Osipitan SAN, the lead counsel to Governor Dapo Abiodun,
said the petitioner had based “their argument for nonappearance on a letter
written to the Court of Appeal asking for the case to be transferred which was
rejected by the Tribunal.”
Osipitan had prayed the court to
dismiss the petition due to the absence of the petitioner as enshrined in the
nation’s law that when a petitioner and its counsel failed to appear in court,
such a petition should be dismissed, which was later agreed upon by the
tribunal
He said: “We joined issues with
them that they have no candidates so to say or that the nominations of the
candidate were not lawful and therefore INEC was right in not listing their
candidateas for the election.
“But, after we had filed all our
papers, today (Friday) was fixed for the hearing, for the case to commence. Neither
the petitioner, that is, the candidate of the Party, nor their counsel was in
court.
“They predicated their absence on
a letter they wrote to the president of the court of appeal, asking for the
case to be transferred. We felt that is not a reason why they should not be in
court at all, that even if they have any issues, they should come to court and
say it out loud and clear.
“At any rate, we looked at the
provisions of the law that say that when a case is fixed for hearing and the
petitioner is not in court, then we as respondents are entitled to judgement
dismissing the case and once it is dismissed, there is no room for it to be
re-listed.
“So we invoked that provision and
applied to the tribunal that the petition be dismissed for want of diligent
persecution because they were absent in court.”
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