Adewale Ajayi,
The Supreme Court has re-affirmed Ogun State governor,Dapo Abiodun as the duly elected Governor of the State in the 18th March Governorship poll.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had declared Abiodun of the All Progressives Congress APC’s winner of the election with 276,298 votes against his closest challenger: Oladipupo Adebutu of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP who polled 262,383 votes.
Adebutu and his party decided to challenge the result and approached the tribunal for redress.
The tribunal unanimously dismissed the petition he filed for “incompetent, defective, disjunctive and lack merits.”
Adebutu however ,decided to approach Court of Appeal to seek a reversal of the tribunal decision, however, in a 2-1 decision, the Appellate Court upheld the decision of the tribunal.
The dissenting judgement held that INEC ought not to have declared Abiodun winner since the margin of lead was less than the number of cancelled votes.
Justice Tijjani Abubakar JSC upheld the concurrent findings of the lower courts and held that the appellants could not discharge the burden of proof placed on them.