Court Of Appeal Dismisses Omisore’s Petition, Drags AregbesolaTo Supreme Court

The Court of Appeal in Akure, the Ondo State capital, yes¬terday dismissed the appeal filed by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), candidate in last year’s governorship election in Osun state, Iyiola Omisore, against the election petition tribunal’s judge¬ment which affirmed the election of Governor Rauf Aregbesola.

Immediately after the judge¬ment, Omisore announced that he would take the matter to the Supreme Court.

The tribunal, whose members were Hon . justice Elizabeth Ngu¬veren Kpojime, Justice Igometi Ofesi and Justice Abubakar Idris Kutigi, had on February 6, 2015, ruled that Aregbesola was the winner of the August 9, 2014 gu¬bernatorial election.

The Court of Appeal panel led by Hon. Justice Mshella, on Thursday affirmed the ruling of the election tribunal. Omisore had approached the court, arguing that the tribunal erred in law when it failed to eval¬uate the petitioners’ evidence in line with their pleadings which were largely documentary.

He said that the tribunal failed to separate the allegation of mal¬practice from non-compliance with the manual and guidelines for the election. According to him, most of the allegations contained in their petition were directed at the Inde¬pendent National Electoral Com¬mission, (INEC), which failed to call any witness. ¬

But Aregbesola’s counsel, Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN), submitted that the issues arising from the appeal were straightfor¬ward, saying: “The petitioners at the lower court challenged the victory of Governor Rauf Areg¬besola in about 930 polling units spread across 17 local govern¬ments.

“In proving their case, the Appellants called 43 witnesses; 34 of them gave hearsay evidence while only seven of their wit¬nesses gave direct oral evidence which was badly discredited un¬der cross-examination. The other two witnesses, a supposedly ex¬pert witness by the nature of evidence on record, gave no expert evidence.”

Olujinmi argued that from the nature of evidence given by all the witnesses, no reasonable tribunal could give judgement in favour of the appellants.