The governorship candidate of the
Allied Peoples Movement, Hon. Adekunle Akinlade said his rival, Gov Dapo
Abiodun of Ogun State had admitted before the tribunal that his election was
not free and fair by telling the tribunal to deduct votes.
Akinlade urged the Election
Petition Tribunal sitting in Isabo, Abeokuta to invalidate the election of Gov
Abiodun of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and declare him winner, alleging
overvoting and gross misconduct.
The former lawmaker also prayed
the tribunal to disqualify Abiodun for providing “contradictory and false
information” in the Form CF001 he submitted to the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) for his senatorial election in 2015 and the one
submitted to the commission for his governorship election in 2019.
Akinlade spoke through his
counsel, Mamman Usman (SAN), as the tribunal resumed on Monday for the adoption
of final addresses by the petitioners and the respondents.
Earlier, counsel to Abiodun,
Taiwo Osipitan (SAN) had urged the tribunal to dismiss Akinlade’s petition,
saying it was dead on arrival.
Osipitan said Akinlade was able
to call only 34 witnesses from 34 polling units out of the over 122 polling
unit results he was contesting.
According to Osipitan, even if
all the 2,394 votes from the 34 polling units were cancelled by the tribunal as
prayed by Akinlade, Abiodun would still be leading as he would have 238,389
votes, while Akinlade would have 219,759 votes, adding that the allegation of
overvoting as claimed by the 34 witnesses could not invalidate the outcome of
the election.
But counsel to Akinlade, Usman
said Akinlade had proven his case by tendering all necessary evidences before
the tribunal and he had shown that INEC awarded unlawful votes to parties
during the March 9 election in Ogun State.
Usman also added that the
allegations of overvoting raised by the petitioners were never contradicted by
the respondents, adding that the tribunal had enough evidence before it.
Akinlade had in his petition
asked the tribunal to cancel all the votes in all the polling units where there
were overvoting, according to the Electoral Act.
In a document before the
tribunal, as sighted by our correspondent, it was gathered that Abiodun had
earlier agreed to part with 25,302 votes, while asking the tribunal to also
remove 15,905 from Akinlade’s votes across the 20 local governments of the
state.
This, according to Abiodun, would
make the result of the March 9 governorship election 216,302 and 206,248 for
the APC and APM respectively.
But Akinlade in his reply said
cancellation of votes in all the polling units where overvoting occurred was
the position of the law.
This, if done, he said would make
him the winner. He prayed the tribunal to deduct 121,821 from Abiodun’s votes
and 58,955 votes from his (Akinlade’s) votes, a figure he claimed to have
arrived at when he removed votes of polling units where overvoting took place
across the state.
This, according to Akinlade,
would translate to him having 163,198 votes and Abiodun having 119,849 as
against the 221,153 and 241,670 votes declared by INEC for the APM and APC
respectively.
He also said he would have scored
25% or more of valid votes across the state to emerge winner of the election,
stressing that Abiodun has already admitted the election that returned him as
governor was marred with irregularities by asking the tribunal to deduct from
his own votes.
On the allegation of Abiodun
providing false information in Exhibit P331 and P331A which are INEC Forms
CF001 he submitted for his senatorial election in 2015 and the one submitted
for his 2019 governorship race, Osipitan argued that anything that had to do
with Form CF001 was a preelection matter that could not be entertained by the
tribunal.
He added that different courts
have ruled over similar case in favour of Abiodun, saying Akinlade ought to
have gone to court 14 days after the submission of the documents to INEC and
not after the election.
Osipitan maintained that Abiodun
only said he attended the University of Ife, but never claimed to have
graduated from the university, asserting that “attendance of a university is
not the same as graduation.”
But Usman told the tribunal that
his colleague, Osipitan displayed ignorance due to lack of knowledge of Section
131(1)(E), which is a 2015 amended version of the Electoral Law 2010.
According to Usman, “The
amendment provides an additional ground for an Election Petition, which is that
the person whose election is being questioned submitted to INEC, an affidavit
containing false information of a fundamental nature to support his
qualification for the election.”
He spoke further that the
petitioners were not interested in Abiodun’s educational qualification, but
they were challenging the contradiction and inconsistency in his 2015 and 2019
INEC Forms CF001, emphasising that the amended electoral act has shown that
issues bordering on falsehood “is not a preelection matter.”
He said if the tribunal juxtaposed
the two forms, it would discover that Abiodun presented false information to
INEC to aid his election, adding that Form CF001 is a certificate.
Usman added that the 2015 Form
CF001 was still in existence, not withdrawn by Abiodun as at 2019 when he was
contesting to be a governor.
Speaking further, he said Abiodun
having sworn to an oath before the court, committed perjury, urging the
tribunal “not only to disqualify him, but to also invalidate his election and
declare Akinlade the winner, as he (Abiodun) must not be allowed to benefit
from illegality.”
Meanwhile, the Justice Yusuf
Halilu-led tribunal has reserved judgement.
The tribunal said it would serve
all parties two days notice prior to the day of judgement.
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