The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship candidate and Osun State governor-elect, Ademola Adeleke, has assembled about 52 lawyers to defend his victory at the Election Petition Tribunal in Osogbo.
JomogNews had earlier reported that the incumbent governor and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Gboyega Oyetola asked the tribunal to nullify Adeleke’s victory.
Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission had declared Adeleke winner after gathering 403, 371 votes against Oyetola who polled 375, 027 votes.
According to Punch, Alex Izinyon, Paul Ananaba and Onyeachi Ikpeazu are among the seven SANs defending Adeleke.
While Izinyon would be leading another SAN and 16 other lawyers for the PDP, Ananaba would be representing INEC with two other SANs and 14 lawyers.
Ikpeazu also would be leading another SAN with no fewer than 10 other lawyers to defend Adeleke.
Ananaba and Izinyon disclosed that they have filed their preliminary objections.
Izinyon while speaking on the case said he filed a defence two weeks ago with preliminary objection on 35 grounds.
He said, “We have already filed a defence about two weeks ago.”
We are leading the team and we filed a preliminary objection on 35 grounds but the petition cannot be entertained even on a preliminary issue.
Among the issues that Adeleke is not qualified for and the issue, they raised about his high school is being determined by the Court of Appeal which we started.
He said, “You cannot bring it in because it has been determined and we also raised several grounds against the competency of the petition itself; why it cannot see the light of day on the three so-called grounds that were filed. First was the issue of qualification, the other two were on majority lawful votes and non-compliance. We have dealt with that.
“The case should be dismissed for lacking in merit. They itemized 10 Local Government Areas where they said there were overvoting out of 31 LGAs. They have even shot themselves on the leg because if you look at the vote coming out from there and compare with what they have, they cannot make a case out of it based on the grounds relied upon.”
