Lagos Guber: Tribunal dismisses LP and Rhodes-Vivour’s suit

The Labour Party and its candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, were excluded from the petition brought by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Olajide Adediran, challenging the recent governorship election in the state by the Lagos State Governorship Election Tribunal on Monday.

In the March 18 Lagos State gubernatorial election, Jandor is opposing Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Obafemi Hamzat’s reelection.

At the hearing, Justice Arum Ashom, the tribunal’s chairman, declared that the court will rule on the PDP and its candidate first before ruling on the petition filed by Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the Labour Party’s candidate for governor.

The tribunal first discussed the parties’ initial objections before reading the judgement, which was done by Justice Abdullahi.

The Tribunal noted that the question has been resolved in several cases and went on to hold that a deputy governor and governor are not separate candidates and they are not required to pay a separate security deposit. The Tribunal was asked whether the deputy governor, Obafemi Hamzat, could be listed as a respondent in the petition.

Given that Jandor had added Rhodes Vivour, the Labour Party candidate, as a respondent in his petition, the PDP’s second objection sought the tribunal to rule on whether a person who lost an election may be joined as a respondent in an election petition.

The panel concurred that a petition should only be brought between an election’s winner and loser, not between two losers.

The preliminary objection was then upheld by the tribunal, and the name of Rhodes-Vivour was then removed from Jandor’s petition.

The court held that Rhodes-Vivour could not afterwards challenge any element of the judgement of the Jandor’s petition or else he would become a meddlesome invader. The court also struck all exhibits that Rhodes-Vivour had offered as evidence in the petition filed by Jandor from its records.

The court also ruled that the Labour Party shouldn’t have been added as a respondent to Jandor and the PDP’s petition. The party’s name was later omitted for being joined incorrectly. The records of the tribunal were likewise cleared of any and all evidence and exhibits pertaining to the party.