The court of appeal has affirmed the election of Biodun Oyebanji at the Ekiti state
governorship election held on June 18, 2022.
Delivering the judgment on Tuesday, a three-member panel of
the court dismissed the appeal filed by Segun Oni, candidate of the Social
Democratic Party (SDP), for lacking merit.
Oyebanji, former secretary to the state government (SSG),
was declared the winner of the election after securing victory in 15 of the 16
LGAs in the state.
The governor, who was the candidate of the All Progressives
Congress (APC), had 187,057 votes, defeating Oni who polled 82,211 votes, and
Bisi Kolawole of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who got 67,457 votes.
Dissatisfied with the outcome of the poll, Oni filed a
petition against Oyebanji and the APC before a three-member tribunal chaired by
Wilfred Kpochi.
Oni had claimed in his petition that Oyebanji’s election was
characterised by irregularities.
He also argued that it was wrong for the Mai Mala Buni-led
APC leadership to have supervised the primary that produced Oyebanji as the
governorship candidate.
Additionally, he alleged that Monisade Afuye, now Ekiti
deputy governor, presented fake WAEC results to the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC).
On December 29, the tribunal dismissed Oni’s petition.
Aggrieved, the SDP governorship candidate proceeded to the
court of appeal canvassing the same issues raised at the tribunal.
In the judgments delivered virtually via Zoom, Hamma Barka
who read the lead judgment agreed with the judgment of the tribunal.
On the allegation of certificate forgery against the deputy
governor, Barka held that Oni ought to have called witnesses including a staff
of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to prove his allegations.
All other issues raised were resolved in favour of the
respondents.
Having resolved all the issues against the appellant, the
appeal was dismissed for lacking of merit.
The appellate court also awarded N200,000 cost against the
appellant in favour of the fourth and fifth respondents.
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