Winner of the July 14th governorship election in Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has filed his response to a petition filed against his election by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Professor Kolapo Olusola Eleka, and asked the court to dismiss the petition.
Three senior advocates, Mr Hakeem Afolabi (SAN); Mr Yomi Aliyu (SAN) and Dr Kayode Olatoke (SAN) filed the 2,558-page defence on behalf of the governor-elect on Wednesday and would lead a team of 35 lawyers that would defend Fayemi at the tribunal.
In the defence, Fayemi came with over 3,000 documents as exhibits through which he contended that he won the governorship election of July 14, 2018, and urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition of Prof. Olusola for allegedly lacking in merit.
Also, Fayemi and the All Progressives Congress (APC) would call 1,009 witnesses, with Dr Olatoke (SAN), who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, saying Olusola’s petition was “a waste of time as it lacks substance.”
Olatoke said he was sure that the case would be dismissed by the tribunal. According to him, “Fayemi won fair and square in 12 out of the 16 local government areas of the state, while Eleka won in four.”
Speaking on the points of the petition, Olatoke said the alleged over-voting in some polling units was a “frivolous and baseless claim,” and added that “Olusola’s first ground in his petition is based on Fayose’s phantom indictment, which had been nullified and set aside by a competent court.”
He said: “The second ground of Eleka’s petition is alleged over-voting, which is another false claim. In any case, the petition in itself is self-defeating.
“The third ground is on deliberate voiding of votes as alleged by Eleka but in actual fact, a majority of the voided ballots were votes meant for Fayemi, while the fourth ground is on vote buying which is baseless as it was, Eleka’s sponsor, Fayose that was guilty of this.
“Fayemi won convincingly based on his popularity.”
Among the 35 senior lawyers in the team representing Dr Fayemi and the APC are: Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), Dr. Kayode Olatoke,(SAN ), Hakeem Afolabi (SAN), John Baiyeshea (SAN), Chief Akin Olujimi (SAN), Jelili Owonikoko (SAN), Yomi Aliyu (SAN) and Segun Ajibola (SAN). No date has been fixed for the hearing.