NEWS: The issues before Oyo guber election petition tribunal AJIMOBI AND LADOJA

THE political circle in Oyo State came alive with the inauguration of the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal for the state last Friday. Although the Tribunal considering the petitions that arose from the March 28 National Assembly elections in the state had since commenced pre-hearing conferences, all eyes had been on the governorship election tussle and the epic battle promised by the sole petitioner, former governor of the state and governorship candidate of Accord, Senator Rashidi Ladoja.
The inauguration of the tribunal has laid to rest, speculations which had been circulated earlier on the petition filed by Ladoja. The state had been awash with speculations such as that Ladoja had withdrawn his petition and his dissatisfaction with the outcome of the election resolved, following the intervention of some elders. The camp of Ladoja had to issue a series of statements denying the rumour.
Ladoja and his party, Accord, are challenging the validity of the declaration of Governor Abiola Ajimobi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the April 11 election in the state. Those joined with Ajimobi as respondents are APC, the state Resident Electoral Commission (REC), Ambassador Rufus Akeju, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The former governor averred that, out of the 33 local government councils in the state, election only took place in 23, as well as in some units in the remaining 10 councils. He argued further that the election was marred by non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) and other relevant laws, over voting, non-accreditation of voters, deliberate refusal to use the smart card readers, ballot stuffing, ballot paper and boxes snatching, multiple thumb printing of ballot papers when election did not hold and other forms of malpractices.
The petitioners stated further that there was a wide variance between the entries in the smart card readings in all the polling units of 11 local government councils and the voters ticked in the voter register. “…The number of voters whose finger prints were not accepted by smart card readers but purportedly had their names on the incident form EC40J, was not equal to the actual form EC40J filled in by the INEC officials ….The incident forms were manipulated such that several non-accredited voters were allowed to vote to the advantage of the 1st and 2nd respondents…,” the petition alleged.
Based on the reason adduced above and many more in the petition, Ladoja alleged that the election of Ajimobi was invalid by reason of corrupt practices in flagrant violation of the Electoral. He claimed that Ajimobi did not score the highest number of lawful votes. Ladoja is therefore asking the Tribunal to void the election of Ajimobi and declare him the authentic winner of the election, having scored the highest number of lawful votes with at least 25 per cent of the votes in 22 of the 33 councils in the state. Alternatively, he is praying the Tribunal to order a fresh election as contained in the Electoral Act.
The grouse of the Accord candidate with the state REC is that Akeju is an alleged “well-known member” of the APC and that his partisanship coloured his supervision of the polls and highly skewed the outcome in favour of Ajimobi. …The third respondent (Akeju) had represented Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu in many political functions, including but not limited to a launching of an album titled ‘OsanJa’ at the Banquet Hall, Premier Hotel, Mokola, Ibadan on 2nd March, 2010 where Alhaji Lai Mohammed, was the guest lecturer….Akeju represented Tinubu as Dr Wale Okediran’s book launch on the 28th January, 2009…..The video of audio of the programme together with the photographs taken at the event are hereby pleaded.”
In view of the documentary evidence pleaded to establish Akeju’s membership of the APC, the order of a Federal High Court, Osogbo which restrained him from conducting the last governorship election in Osun State, and the protest letters written against the REC before the election, Ladoja is praying the Tribunal to declare Akeju “an unfit person who ought not to conduct any election in Nigeria, including Oyo State.”
Ajimobi’s lawyers, in a response filed, notified the Tribunal by way of a preliminary objection “to dismiss or strike out the petition for being grossly incompetent, abusive, vague, nebulous, general, bogus, speculative, academic and/or hypothetical.” The governor’s lawyers argued that, since their client was not declared the winner of the election in the five local government councils in Ogbomosho zone, which were part of the 10 councils where election was alleged not to have been conducted, Ajimobi was neither the statutory nor the natural respondent to the results of the election in the five councils. Based on this and other reasons, he is urging the Tribunal to strike out the petition.
The governor’s credential as a former chief executive officer of a subsidiary of a multinational, his political achievements, including his performance in the state in the last four years, were therein advertised and advanced as the reasons he won the election. The governor claimed that the election was held in all the 33 councils as against the 23 claimed by Ladoja. 
On the alleged collusion between Governor Ajimobi and INEC officials and allocation of votes to the governor where election was not held, the 1st respondent’s lawyers put the petitioner to “the strictest proof” of the allegation, saying it was not to the knowledge of their client that such connivance was done. Ajimobi also counter-argued through his lawyers that the total number of votes cast, as declared by INEC, did not exceed the total number of accredited voters.
One very striking feature of Ajimobi’s response to the petition was the paragraph wherein he alleged there were irregularities in the units and councils where Ladoja won. “While the respondent (Ajimobi) won clearly and neatly in all the local governments highlighted above and as reflected in all the electoral forms, respondent would content at the trial that in the few local governments where the petitioner(s) purportedly won, it was they who engaged in acts of corrupt practices and other activities which are contrary to and in breach of the Electoral Act,” the respondent’s lawyers said.
Akeju and INEC, in their joint response, queried why Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, who was the governorship candidate of the Labour Party or his party, was not joined, as respondents in the petition, especially when he was returned winner in five of the councils where election was alleged not to have been held. They are also questioning the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to entertain Ladoja’s petition as it relates to areas where he was not returned winner.
On the allegation of Akeju’s membership of the APC, his lawyers said: “All allegations listed in paragraph 38 of the petition (about partisanship) are pre-election matters for which this Honourable Tribunal lacks the jurisdiction to adjudicate on.”  Akeju and INEC also absolved the personnel, ad-hoc and permanent, deployed for the polls of any complicity. They also content that those who voted in the election were duly accredited with the instrumentality of the smart card readers as directed by INEC headquarters.
Hearing of the petition, which will begin after a pre-hearing conference has been done, promises to be a spectacle for those interested in the politics of the state. An array of nine Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) has been lined up for the impending legal fireworks on the petition. While the Ladoja’s team is led by Richard Ogunwole (SAN) and 11 other senior lawyers, the four respondents-Ajimobi, Akeju, APC and INEC-boast of Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), Muyiwa Aduroja (SAN), Chief Akin Olujimi (SAN), Tunde Busari (SAN), Yusuf Ali (SAN), Alhaji Lasun Sanusi (SAN), Chief Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), Babatunde Aiku (SAN) and 15 other lawyers.
The three-member panel that will adjudicate on the petition comprises Justice F.C Obieze (chairman), Justices I.M Muhammad Karaye and J.E Ikede as members. Obieze, while speaking at the inauguration of the panel, stressed that frivolous application for adjournment from counsel would not be condoned. He said the panel would sit every day of the week, excluding only Sunday, in order to quickly dispense with and deliver judgment on the sole petition before it within the constitutionally spelt out 180 days. He notified the parties in the matter that time started running the day the petition was filed and sought their cooperation. He pledged that he and his colleagues would discharge the task assigned to them with honesty and fear of God.
The lawyers from the parties in the petition took turn to assure the panel of their cooperation in such a way that would aid the delivery of verdict within 180 days.