The Supreme Court on Wednesday put to rest the legal battle between Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State and his immediate predecessor, Mr. Gboyega Oyetola over 2022 Osun State governorship election’s result announced by INEC, when it affirmed Senator Ademola Adeleke as the authentic elected governor of Osun State.
According to the lead judgment prepared and delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, a member of the five-man panel that presided over the case, the court held that the appellants, Mr Oyetola and the All Progressives Congress (APC), did not produce a concrete evidence to support their claims of over voting and improper accreditation of voters.
Mr Agim held that the evidence submitted by the appellant which did not include the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines of the 744 poling units in dispute, could not be relied upon as the primary source of records for the accredited voters in the polling units.
Failing to provide the authentic voter accreditation records from the BVAS implied that the appellants relied on a secondary, insufficient and inadmissible means to prove their allegations.
In-addition, the apex court also ruled that the expert analysis presented by the APC and Mr Oyetola was not independent as the expert in question was a member of the APC and an associate of Mr Oyetola who had a vested interest in his analysis, affirming that the appellant failed to prove grounds of their petition.
“The appellant case clearly collapsed at the conclusion of evidence,” Mr Agim said.
