The Court of Appeal in Abuja, on Friday, nullified the judgment of the election tribunal which voided the election of Ademola Adeleke as governor of Osun State.
A three member panel of the appellate court led by Justice Mohammed Shuaibu held that the tribunal erred in law in arriving that Adeleke was not lawfully elected as governor in the July 16 governorship election.
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According to the ruling, the lower tribunal was wrong when it held that there was over voting in some polling units when such allegations were not proved.
The tribunal in a unanimous judgment stated that over voting can only be proved with a combination of data obtained from the BVAS and report from INEC backend server and not only on the back-end server report.
The appellate court in addition faulted the tribunal for not taking congnizance of a judgment of a Court of Appeal which earlier held that Adeleke was qualified to contest the election.
Gboyega Oyetola, the former governor of the state and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had challenged Ademola Adeleke’s victory in the July 16 governorship election, before the election petition tribunal in Osun state.
The tribunal led by Justice Tertse Kume, in a split judgement of 2 to 1, sacked Adeleke based on irregularities in 744 polling units across ten local government areas of the state.
It cancelled the alleged illegal votes and declared Oyetola the winner on legally valid votes.
The court also ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw the certificate of return issued to Adeleke and issue it to Oyetola.
However, in the ruling on Friday, the Appeal Court affirmed Adeleke as the authentic governor of Osun State.
