The governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Oyo state has just in a new ruling dismissed an application which was filed by Mr Adebayo Adelabu, the governorship candidate of the APC to recount all the ballot papers which were used in the March 9 election.
According to the reports from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), it was garnered that Adelabu along with his party the All Progressives Congress (APC) are at the moment challenging the declaration of Seyi Makinde, who was governorship candidate of PDP, by INEC as the winner of the March 9 governorship election in Oyo state.
Adelabu had through his Counsel, Mr Titus Asaolu ,SAN, filed an application which seeks to recount all the ballot papers that were used in the March 9 election.
In delivering his ruling on Monday, the three-man panel, which was chaired by Justice Sirajo Muhammed, dismissed the application, adding further that it would jeopardise the respondents’ right to fair hearing.
Mohammed said that the petitioners were only challenging the result of few local governments in conduct of the governorship election and not all the 33 local government of the state.
The judge said that filling an application now to count all the ballot papers used in the election would amount to amending the petitioners’ pleadings.
He said that the time allowed to amend pleadings of all parties has elapsed and no pleadings can be amended at this stage.
Mohammed said that the petitioners were also not consistent on the date the election was conducted as they were quoting different date in their application.
The judge then dismissed the application and fixed June 10 for commencement of hearing, adding that pre-hearing has ended.
Recall that after the Gubernatorial election in the state, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Seyi Makinde, was declared winner of the Oyo State governorship election.
The PDP candidate won 28 out of the 33 local governments in the state, leaving the All Progressives Congress with only five.
Mr Makinde received 515, 621 votes to defeat his closest rival from the APC, Bayo Adelabu, who polled 357, 982 votes.
The margin of defeat is 157,639 votes.
The African Democratic Congress’ candidate, Olufemi Lanlehin, despite quitting the race to endorse the PDP candidate, came third with 12,375.
Former governor Adebayo Akala, who was the candidate of the Action Democratic Party before he defected to the APC, also received votes totaling 8,664 to come a distant fourth position.
Forty two (42) political parties contested the governorship election, even though many of them dropped their ambition at the last minute to align with either the PDP or the APC.
Their names remained on the ballot, notwithstanding and they received votes.
(NAN/Premium Times)
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