February 21, (THEWILL) – The Court of Appeal sitting in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, has affirmed Biodun Oyebanji, as the winner of the governorship election held on June 18, 2022, in the state.
Delivering the judgement on Tuesday, a three-member panel of the court dismissed the appeal filed by the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Segun Oni, for lacking in merit.
Oyebanji was declared winner of the June 18, 2022 election, after securing victory in 15 of the 16 LGAs in the state.
The governor, who was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), polled 187,057 votes, to defeat Oni, who secured 82,211 votes, and Bisi Kolawole of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who got 67,457 votes.
Dissatisfied with the outcome of the poll, Oni filed a petition against Oyebanji and the APC before a three-member tribunal, chaired by Wilfred Kpochi.
Oni had claimed in his petition that Oyebanji’s election was characterised by irregularities.
He also argued that it was wrong for the Mai Mala Buni-led APC leadership to have supervised the primary that produced Oyebanji as the governorship candidate.
Oni alleged that Monisade Afuye, now Ekiti deputy governor, presented fake WAEC results to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
On December 29, the tribunal dismissed Oni’s petition. Aggrieved, the SDP governorship candidate proceeded to the court of appeal canvassing the same issues raised at the tribunal.
In the judgements delivered virtually via Zoom, Hamma Barka, who read the lead judgement agreed with the judgement of the tribunal.
On the allegation of certificate forgery against the deputy governor, Barka held that Oni ought to have called witnesses including a staff of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), to prove his allegations.
All other issues raised were resolved in favour of the respondents.
Having resolved all the issues against the appellant, the appeal was dismissed for lacking in merit.
The appellate court also awarded N200,000 cost against the appellant in favour of the fourth and fifth respondents.
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