Osun Election: Parties adopt final addresses -as tribunal reserves judgement

• Published date: 14 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

Adeleke forged certificate, Oyetola's counsel insist

Asks Tribunal to declare Oyetola winner after canceling votes of disputed polling units

There are infractions in 1,750 polling units not 749 - INEC counsel

Adeleke disowns INEC's BVAS report

The Osun Election Tribunal sitting in Osogbo, led by Justice Tetsea Kume, on yesterday admitted the written addresses of the parties involved in the litigation, after the counsel for All Progressives Congress, APC, Adegboyega Oyetola, and those of Senator Ademola Adeleke, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, argued and adopted their final written addresses before the Tribunal.

Counsel for Oyetola insisted that Senator Adeleke submitted forged certificates, having submitted a testimonial purported to have been issued by Ede Muslim Grammar School, bearing Osun State at a time Osun had not been created and another letter of attestation from Ede Muslim High School, to indicate he attended a secondary school.

The petitioners insisted that if the governor had indeed attended Ede Muslim Grammar School, he could not have presented an Attestation Letter from Ede Muslim High School to show he attended a secondary school.

Making their submissions before the Tribunal, Counsel for Oyetola and APC, led by Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, noted that the mere fact that INEC did not at any stage indicate that the CTC BVAS report issued to the petitioners was a temporary one or an unsynchronized one, the Tribunal should accept it as the best evidence in the circumstances, adding that the second CTC BVAS report issued to the PDP and Senator Adeleke by INEC was an afterthought, especially because it was sought after the petitioners had filed their petition before the Tribunal.

Prince Fagbemi went further to submit that even in the CTC BVAS report issued to the PDP and Senator Adeleke, there were infractions in over 100 polling units. He, therefore, urged the Tribunal to declare Oyetola as the winner of the election, after canceling votes from the disputed polling units.

In his own argument, Counsel for INEC, Prof. Paul Ananaba, submitted that there were discrepancies in 1,750 polling units, saying that results of elections are updated on a continuous basis.

He said as at the time the first CTC BVAS report was issued to the petitioners, some 'data were still hanging' and that it was the second CTC BVAS report which was synchronised that should be relied upon by the Tribunal.

This is even as Counsel...