Dismiss Omisore’s Suit, Aregbesola Tells Tribunal

State of Osun Governor, Rauf Aregbesola has asked the Election Petitions Tribunal to dismiss the petition filed by Senator Iyiola Omisore.
Senator Omisore is contesting the outcome of the August 9 elections in the state.

Omisore on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party came second at the polls and had asked the tribunal to sack Aregbesola, who was declared the winner of the election. Aregbesola was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress.

Speaking through his Director of Publicity, Research and Strategy of the APC, Mr. Kunle Oyatomi, Aregbesola said this in his reply to the petition of the PDP candidate.

In support of the reply, the governor, who is the first respondent in the petition, frontloaded 603 witnesses across all the local government areas where Omisore claimed there were malpractices in his petition.

In the reply dated September 22, 2014 Aregbesola raised a preliminary objection to the competence of the petition on the following grounds: “The petitioner has no locus standi to present this petition not having shown in the petition that he was validly a candidate at the election subject of this petition.

“The allegations contained in several paragraphs of the petition are vague, general, generic, not specific, speculative, omnibus, imprecise and nebulous. Several paragraphs of the petition raise a pre-election issue which the tribunal has no jurisdiction to entertain.

“The petition has not been properly constituted in that criminal allegations have been made against persons who have not been joined to this petition. The petitioners did not meet all the conditions precedent to the presentation of the petition. The grounds on which the petition is based are unknown to law.

“Apart from the preliminary issues raised against the competence of the petition, the first respondent, Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, avers that the petitioner did not score up to 25 per cent of the lawful votes cast in each of the 30 local government areas of Osun and did not satisfy the provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act.”