The Lagos Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has ruled that the governorship ticket of Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, is considered one ticket and inseparable.
Justice Mikhail Abdullahi made this declaration while delivering a judgment in response to the objection raised by the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, Olajide Adediran, against the election of Governor Sanwo-Olu and Hamzat in the March 18 election in the state. Governor Sanwo-Olu and Hamzat were identified as the 2nd and 3rd respondents in the petition.
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The tribunal ruled that the issue regarding their ticket had been settled in prior cases and clarified that a deputy governor and governor are not distinct candidates. Furthermore, they are not obligated to make separate security deposits.
The court also addressed the issue of misjoinders between the PDP and the Labour Party (LP). Adediran, also known as Jandor, had questioned whether a person who lost an election could be included as a respondent in an election petition. Adediran had included the Candidate of the Labour Party, Rhodes-Vivour, as a respondent in his petition. The tribunal, citing precedent cases, established that a petition is meant to be filed between the winning and losing candidates of an election, not between two individuals who both lost.
Consequently, the tribunal upheld the preliminary objection of the 2nd and 3rd respondents and removed the name of the 5th respondent, LP’s Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, from Adediran’s petition. It also removed all exhibits tendered by Rhodes-Vivour from its records, preventing him from challenging any aspect of Jandor’s petition to avoid meddling.
Similarly, the tribunal concluded that the 6th respondent, the Labour Party, should not have been included as a respondent in Adediran and the PDP’s petition. Therefore, the party’s name was removed for improper inclusion, along with all related evidence and exhibits.
However, the tribunal disagreed with the objections raised by the APC and its candidate, stating that the misjoinder of the LP and its candidate did not justify striking out the entire petition. Instead, the appropriate action was to remove the names of the improperly joined parties.
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“That the 5th and 6th respondent ought not to have been made respondents to the petition cannot rob the tribunal of the jurisdiction to hear the parties. The question of misjoinder cannot lead to a striking out of the petition as the proper order to make is to strike out the names of the parties”.
“Already the name of the 5th respondent has been struck out and the 6th respondent who has been found to be improperly joined is also ordered to be struck out,” the tribunal ruled.
