Osun State governorship election petition tribunal sitting in Abuja has declared Ademola Adeleke as winner of the September 2018 election in the state.
The three-man tribunal upheld the petitions filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Adeleke, challenging the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Governor Gboyega Oyetola at the governorship polls.
The tribunal had earlier dismissed the objections of Oyetola, APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), saying that Adeleke’s petition had merit.
Adeleke and the PDP had prayed the tribunal to rule that he scored the highest lawful votes in the election and should be declared winner.
But Oyetola, APC and INEC filed notices of preliminary objection against the petition on the grounds that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the petition.
Chairman of the three-man panel, Ibrahim Sirajo, held that the objections were misconceived and struck them out.
The tribunal also ruled that INEC mishandled election materials, foremost being that the CTC should and must be exact replicas of the EC8A pink copies which it sought INEC to explain.
INEC failed to neither explain nor justify the alterations and also failed to call any witnesses to justify the alterations.
The court then ruled that failure to justify the alterations meant that it was a deliberate act.
