Ogun Guber: Supreme Court withholds judgment as PDP demands fresh election in 99 polling units

On Thursday, the Ogun State governorship election legal dispute between incumbent Governor Dapo Abiodun and challenger Oladipupo Adebutu was postponed by the Supreme Court.

Adebutu ran for governor on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket on March 18, 2023, despite the governor belonging to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

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Following the conclusion of the appeal’s arguments, Justice John Inyang Okoro, the head of a five-member Supreme Court panel, declared that the parties involved will be notified of the date of the judgement.

The appellants, Adebutu and PDP, asked the supreme court to order the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to hold new elections in the 99 polling places where the previous polls were purportedly invalidated in their primary appeal.

The two appellants contended, via Chief Chris Uche SAN, their main counsel, that the electoral authority had never rejected the request to cancel the election in any of the 99 polling places.

According to the senior attorney, when new elections had not yet taken place in all 99 voting places, Governor Abiodun and the APC were unjustly, erroneously, and prematurely named the winners of the poll on March 18.

Uche brought up the election results declared by INEC, stating that the votes cast at the 99 polling places were over 40, 000, and that the victory of the APC and governor Abiodun was achieved by a mere 13, 000 votes. This caught the attention of the Supreme Court.

He claimed that the more than 40,000 votes cast at the 99 polling places might have been used to identify the true winners. He also said that the Ogun governorship contest would remain unresolved until the 99 polling places held elections.

In order to overturn the rulings of the Ogun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, which had affirmed the gubernatorial election, he begged the top court to do so.

Nonetheless, Abiodun Owonikoko, SAN, the INEC’s attorney, asked the court to reject the appeal.

Tayo Oyetibo SAN, the APC’s lead attorney, argued that the election was definitively over, which is why the appeal should be dismissed.

Oyetibo contended that the records presenting the appellants’ claim that 99 polling places had their elections cancelled were worthless, lacking a header, a date, a signature, and the name of an official.

The senior attorney contended that the alleged election cancellation documents violated the Electoral Act since the requirements for their admission were not fulfilled.

For this reason, he begged the Supreme Court to dismiss the records as being of no probative value, as done by the tribunal and the Court of Appeal.

The second respondent in the appeal took up the views of the APC and INEC.

On November 24, 2023, the Lagos Division of the Appeal Court upheld Dapo Abiodun’s reelection as the legitimate governor of Ogun State in a divided ruling.

Justice Joseph Shagbaor Ikyegh’s majority ruling denied the appeal that the PDP and Oladipupo Adebutu, its governorship candidate, had filed.

Justice Jane Esienanwan Inyang’s minority ruling, however, accepted the appeal and mandated that a new election be held by the INEC within ninety days.