By Kenneth Atavti
The Abuja division of the Court of Appeal has fixed hearing for April 24 in the appeal filed by the Osun State Governor, Adegboyega Oyetola and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) against March 22, 2019, judgement by the Osun State Governorship Election Tribunal.
Information about the hearing date is contained in notices sent to parties by the court’s Registry, a copy of which was sighted by Daybreak in Abuja.
The tribunal, in a split decision of two-to-one, voided the victory of Oyetola and the APC in the election held on September 22, 2018.
Two members of the tribunal’s three-member panel upheld the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate Senator Ademola Adeleke against the outcome of the election, while its chairman dismissed it for being unmeritorious.
Justices Peter Obiorah and Adegboye Gbolagunte gave the majority decision, which replaced Oyetola and APC with Adeleke and PDP as winners of the election.
The tribunal Chairman, Justice Muhammad Sirajo, in his dissenting judgment, held otherwise. He dismissed the petition by Adeleke and PDP on the grounds that the petitioners failed to prove their claims.
In the separate notices of appeal, they filed against the tribunal’s majority judgment, Oyetola and the APC ripped the judgment apart, arguing that “it is perverse, replete with contradictions and against the weight of evidence.”
They want the Court of Appeal to uphold their appeals, set aside the majority judgment and dismiss the October 16, 2018 petition by Adeleke and the PDP. Oyetola and the APC said they were contesting the entire majority judgment, except where it held that it lacked jurisdiction to set aside the INEC Guidelines used for the election; that the allegation of over voting was not proved; that the petitioners did not prove voided votes and other parts of the judgment where it agreed with their arguments.
They queried the validity of the judgment, which was authored and delivered by Justice Obiorah, who they noted, did not participate in all the settings of the tribunal during the trial. The appellants are of the view that the entire majority judgment is a nullity because it was written and delivered by Justice Obiorah “who did not participate in all the proceedings of the tribunal and who was not present when all the witnesses gave evidence.”
They noted that Justice Obiorah was absent on February 6, 2019, when the respondent’s witnesses (RWs) 12 and 13 – Ayoola Soji and Oladejo Kazeem – testified and tendered exhibits, which the tribunal admitted in evidence.
The appellants are contending that, having not attended the tribunal’s sitting on February 6, 2019, Justice Obiorah did not see the two witnesses and was unable to examine their demeanour, as required, and therefore, it was unlawful for the judge to have authored a judgment in which he reviewed the evidence given by the witnesses.
In the notice of appeal filed for Oyetola by his lawyer, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), it was argued that: “The writing of and or the participation of the Honourable Justice P. C. Obiorah in the writing of the judgment of the lower tribunal of 22nd March 2019 and delivery of same, vitiates the entire judgment.”
