Adeleke: The road to victory at tribunal

NOT many pundits and observers of what played out in the September 22 governorship election in Osun State were surprised when the state’s Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja, on Friday, delivered its judgment, declaring Senator Isiaka Adeleke’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate as the winner of the election in the state.

In its judgment, the tribunal considered the supplementary election held on September 27 in seven polling units as illegal.

Before the supplementary election was announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), PDP’s Adeleke had won the main election by polling 254, 698 votes to beat Gbenga Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who garnered 254, 345. A margin of 353 votes separated the two contenders.

The judgment made it second time back-to-back that court has decided the person and the party that truly won majority of votes in the governorship election in the state. Recall that the immediate past governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola, was declared governor by the Appeal Court sitting in Ibadan, Oyo State.

It was after the Appellate Court in a four-hour judgment delivered by Justice Clara Ogunbiyi,  had cancelled, as prayed by Aregbesola, the results of the election in 10 local government areas for non-compliance with the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act.

Condemnation had trailed the September 22, 2018 election in Osun and the supplementary polls held later, over the manner INEC handled the exercise. The PDP’s candidate alleged that the actual margin he won the first election was 4, 740 and not 353 as contained in INEC’s result.  But despite the results, he was upbeat about to widening the lead in the supplementary election.

The APC leadership, having sensed trouble for the governing party’s candidate, swung into frenetic action to woo the third and fourth placed candidates, Senator Iyiola Omisore of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Moshood Adeoti of the Action Democratic Party (ADP),  to support Oyetola to win the state for APC.

After a series of visits to him by eminent leaders in APC, Omisore declared support for Oyetola of APC with the understanding that a coalition government would result. It was a strategic win for the APC to have Omisore in its fold. Some of the polling units where the rerun would hold were in Omisore’s senatorial district.

Thence came the rerun election in which Oyetola was declared winner, cancelling the 353 deficit in the main election and leading Adeleke by 482 votes with 255, 505 and 255, 023 respectively for APC and PDP. But Adeleke cried foul, vowing to retrieve his mandate at the tribunal.

Local and foreign observers and monitors berated the conduct of the election as falling below international best practices. They also particularly chided the role played by the security operatives in the exercise.

One of the observers, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), faulted the supplementary election thus in a statement: “In the light of these anti-democratic acts, which have undermined the sanctity of the ballot therefore, we hold strongly the view that the re-run poll of Thursday, September 27, 2018 does not meet up with the minimum standards for free, fair and credible elections.” A similar report was given by a joint observer team from the United States, European Union and the United Kingdom.

Within the 21 days window allowed by the laws, Adeleke filed a petition before the tribunal to register his displeasure with the decision of INEC. But just as the three-member panel headed by Justice T. A Igoche was expected to begin its sitting, the tribunal was disbanded.

All hell broke loose because of the decision. In the premises of Osun State High Court, PDP members protested the disbandment of the panel as one they would have negative effect on the petitioner’s case. Bearing placard with inscriptions such as “No more Salamigate in Osun, Save our democracy from rogues” and others, the PDP wondered why the dissolution of the panel was not followed by the constituting of a new one.

Not long after, a new panel headed by Justice Ibrahim Sirajo, was constituted to adjudicate the petition. The spokesperson of the Court of Appeal, Mrs Sa’adatu Musa, had explained that the President of the Appeal Court, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, reconstituted the panel in exercise of the powers vested in her. She explained further that there was no cause for alarm, since the earlier panel had not begun to sit on the petition.

The argument, thereafter, shifted to the appropriate location for the tribunal should conduct its mandate. The PDP leaders felt, with the sudden disbandment of the panel, anything could happen, particularly to the new panel, and consequently called for the relocation of the panel to a neutral ground, fearing the members of the panel could be compromised. From Osun, the tribunal sitting was changed to Abuja, with the panel promising to discharge its task without fear or favour.

With temperature possibly running high in both the camps of the petitioner and Governor Oyetola, whose victory was being challenged, the tribunal first held that Adeleke’s petition was competent. Counsel for Oyetola had filed a preliminary objection before the tribunal challenging the competence of the petition as well as the jurisdiction of the tribunal to entertain it.

In its judgment, the tribunal declared the rerun as illegal, as the returning officer for the election was not vested with the power to cancel results as he did in the main election. Thus, the panelists nullified the votes credited to Oyetola in the rerun and declared Adeleke the real winner of the election, having scored majority of lawful votes cast at the first ballot.

Justice Peter Obiora, who delivered the main judgment, ordered INEC to withdraw the certificate of return it earlier issued to Oyetola and issue a fresh one to Adeleke as the legitimate winner of the election.

“The petitioner (Mr Adeleke) having fulfilled the constitutional requirements and scored the majority lawful vote is declared winner and returned as governor.

“The rerun in the seven cancelled units are hereby declared null and void and of no electoral effect,” Obiora said in the judgment.

There, however, was a minority judgment by the chairman of the panel, Justice Sirajo, who said Adeleke did not prove that the INEC did not substantially comply with the extant law in the election. He held that the tribunal, under Section 140(3) of the Electoral Act, lacks the powers to declare a winner but could only declare a supplementary of fresh election rather than make a declaration.

Oyetola, in his reaction to the judgment, vowed to appeal the verdict, just as he called for calm from the citizens of the state he has governed for about six months. He has up to 21 days for his lawyers to file the appeal.

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Speaking on the development in a telephone interview with Sunday Tribune, human rights lawyer, Ebun Olu-Adegboruwa, said he was not surprised that the tribunal voided the election of Oyetola of APC as the people of the state clearly rejected APC in the September 22, 2018 polls.

“I believe that the judgment did not come as a surprise. Keen followers of events leading to the election, particularly the rerun, are quite of the view that the people of the state voted to reject the APC. I think all Nigerians and the international community are of the view that the people of Osun State preferred the PDP to APC.

“What the tribunal has done is to rubbish INEC as an institution that can’t be trusted to conduct credible elections. INEC officials cancelled the results in certain units, nullified and deducted votes. The tribunal has exposed INEC an incapable of organizing credible elections because in all the deduction and calculations that the tribunal did, it was clear that the tribune inducted officials of INEC very seriously.

“But going forward, we are calling on the judiciary to decide cases, not just election petitions, according to their conscience and law. There is a lot of fear in the minds of Nigerians generally as to the impartiality, integrity and independence of the judiciary. And so a judgment as this time, coming after the general election, seems to boost the confidence of the people within the judiciary. I salute the courage of members of the tribunal and I believe the dissatisfied parties can appeal and challenge the decision even up to the Supreme Court.

On the minority judgment, he said what the panel chair was saying was that court has no power to deduct votes.

“If we go by precedent, in the past, a lot of governors have emerged to tribunal. Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, Aregbesola of Osun and Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State are all products of the courts. Once a tribunal sat and it saw merit in a petition, it has the duty to give a victorious verdict on who actually won the election.

“If the tribunal had ordered a rerun it is the same indicted INEC found to have displayed so much bias that will be given the task. And when you look at the general trend where supplementary elections are to be held, it gives you the impression that INEC is just playing with votes and toying with people’s wishes. So, I think the judiciary is generally just reacting to the incompetence of INEC. The commission should take all the blame for the shoddy manner it conducted the election. The verdict of the tribunal has reflected the will of the people and I have no doubt in mind that Senator Adeleke won that election,” he said.