Ogun Election: appeal court reserves judgment in Akinlade’s appeal

The Court of Appeal in Ibadan has reserved judgment in an appeal filed by Mr Adekunle Akinlade of Allied People’s Movement (APM) against the victory of Mr Dapo Abiodun of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the March 9 governorship election in Ogun State.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Akinlabi appealed the Sept. 4 judgment of the Election Petition Tribunal in Abeokuta that upheld the victory of Abiodun as the Ogun State governor.

NAN reports that other respondents in the appeal are the APC and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The five-man panel of the appeal court Presided over by Justice Abubakar Yahaya reserved judgment after listening to the argument of all the parties.

Yahaya said that judgment would be communicated to the council.

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Earlier, the lead Counsel to APM, Mr Sebastine Hon (SAN), said Abiodun submitted a false academic qualification to aid his qualification to contest the 2019 governorship election.
Hon contented that there was a difference between what he wrote in the form CFO submitted in 2015 to contest the Senatorial election and the one submitted in 2019 for the governorship election.
He said that Abiodun was not qualified to contest the governorship election base on his false qualification and urged the court to uphold the appeal.
In his argument, Abiodun’s counsel, Mr Taiwo Osipitan (SAN), said his client was qualified to contest the governorship election.
Osipitan said the issue of academic qualification was a pre-election matter which ought to have been brought to court within 14 days after the document was submitted.

He said that the appellants did not have any grounds of appeal and urged the court to dismiss the appeal.

(NAN)