Osun poll: Oyetola to challenge Adeleke’s victory in court, arranges 50 lawyers

Osun State Governor Gboyega Oyetola is preparing to go to court to challenge the outcome of last Saturday’s governorship election in the state, which he lost to Ademola Adeleke of the People’s Democratic Party.

He is set to engage no fewer than 50 lawyers, including Senior Advocates of Nigeria, to get the court to upturn the decision of the electoral body in his favour.

The Punch in a report quoted a member of the governor’s legal team, Kunle Adegoke, as giving the indication in an interview on Tuesday.

This came as the PDP and the governor-elect, Ademola Adeleke, warned the Independent National Electoral Commission against allowing the All Progressives Congress to tamper with election materials.

INEC on Sunday declared Adeleke the winner of the governorship election in the state, with the Returning Officer for the election and Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, disclosing that Adeleke polled 403,371 votes to beat the incumbent APC governor, who got 375,027 votes, and 13 other candidates in the race.

Oyetola won in 13 local government areas of the state to come second in the election. Oyetola in 2018 defeated Adeleke after a run-off, with the support of his predecessor, and now Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola and former Lagos state governor and now, APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.

Adegoke told The Punch on Tuesday that they were still reviewing the 2022 results declared by INEC.

He said, “We are still reviewing documents and the legal team is actually working. In an election of this nature, the documents will be so many; so it is important to look at them critically before we make a decision and that is exactly what we are working on right now.

“Dr Biodun Layonu (SAN), is the leader of the team. The legal team is not complete yet because there are so many others that will still come in.

“In the meantime, the two members of the legal team we can reveal are Dr Biodum Layonu and Kunle Adegoke. Others that may come in are people we may not know but as soon as we are ready to move, we will notify the press.

“The membership can’t be determined as many lawyers are interested in joining the team. You know election petition is a special case. So, we allow as many lawyers that are interested to come in. We may run into 50 or more members.”

But Adeleke warned INEC against tampering with the materials used for the July 16 Osun state governorship poll in a bid to favour the APC.

Adeleke in a statement signed by the Chairman of his Media Management Team, Prince Diran Odeyemi, said there were insinuations that the leadership of the APC was working on INEC to tamper with some electoral materials that would be used against Adeleke’s victory at the Election Petition Tribunal..

Adeleke called on the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to direct the commission’s officials in Osun to submit all electoral materials to the state headquarters.

The statement read in part, “There is rumour milling around the state that the leadership of the All Progressives Congress are romancing the INEC to tamper with some electoral materials that could be used against the victory of the governor-elect in their alleged proposed brief at the Election Petition Tribunal.

“Some APC leaders have been moving around local government offices of the commission to liaise with the INEC officials to tamper with some of the Electoral Materials in their custody.

“Senator Adeleke called on the INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, to call his officials in Osun State to order so as to prevent them from perpetrating the dastardly act.”