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Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of Osun State on Friday asked the Election Petition Tribunal in Osogbo to nullify the election of the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Ademola Adeleke.
According to the governor, the election was fraught with certain irregularities.
He also said that Adeleke ought not to have been declared winner as he was not qualified to have contested the election in the first place, having submitted forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commision.
Saturday PUNCH reported that Adeleke was returned elected by the INEC, after defeating his closest challenger, Oyetola, and 13 other candidates, scoring a total of 403, 371
Oyetola got 375, 027 votes and won in 13 Local Government Areas of the state to come second in the election.
A member of Oyetola’s legal team, Kunle Adegoke (SAN), in an interview with Saturday PUNCH immediately after filing the petition in Osogbo said the governor has assembled 50 lawyers including 10 Senior Advocates of Nigeria, listing 13 grounds on which premises Adeleke should be disqualified.
The legal team, he said, have established by the petition that the election in those 749 polling units across 10 Local Governments in Osun State was characterized by irregularities pertaining to over voting.
Adegoke said, “We have nothing less than 50 lawyers, including 10 SANs that we cannot list all of them, so we have listed about 20 lawyers in the petition. We have 13 reliefs. What we are contesting is that the election is fraught with certain irregularities by which the person declared winner ought not to have been declared and the petitioner, Alhaji Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola ought to have been declared the winner on the ground that Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke was not qualified to have contested the election in the first place, having submitted forged certificate to INEC.