The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Olajide Adediran and the Labour Party’s (LP) Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour both filed petitions, and the Lagos State Governorship Election Tribunal will rule on them today (Monday).
Over the weekend, the day for judgment was announced by the tribunal, which is presided over by Justice Arum Ashom.
Justices Igho Braimoh and Mikail Abdullahi are additional panelists.
According to LEADERSHIP, the Tribunal received four petitions for governor from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Abdul-Azeez Adediran (Jandor), Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, Allied Peoples Movement (APM), and Action Peoples Party (APP).
Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and Action Peoples Party (APP), however, withdrew their petitions prior to the petition hearing starting.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Labour Party, and its candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour are respondents in the petition filed by the PDP and Jandor.
They are requesting that the Tribunal declare Sanwo-Olu and Rhodes-Vivour ineligible for the position of candidate due to their “non-compliance” with the Electoral Act of 2022 and IEC rules.
The petitioners claimed that the APC did not follow the INEC timetable and schedule of activities for the 2023 general election, which required all political parties to give INEC 21 days’ notice before the conduct of the primary election. The petition was dated April 7 and was marked EPT/LAG/GOV/01/2023.
Adediran also claimed that Sanwo-Olu, Hamzat, and Rhodes-Vivour lacked the prerequisite qualifications to run for governor at the time of the election, in addition to the claim of non-compliance with pertinent Electoral Act 2022 provisions.
He requested that the election be declared invalid and that Adediran be declared the victor.
But Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, a candidate for the Labour Party, is the only signatory to his petition. None of the co-petitioners included the Labour Party.
The APC, INEC, Sanwo-Olu, and Hamzat are the petition’s respondents. Rhodes-Vivour.
Sanwo-Olu is not eligible to run for office, so he urged the tribunal to declare him the winner of the governorship election.
A second claim made by the Labour Party candidate was that Sanwo-Olu’s election was invalid due to fraud or other violations of the Electoral Act of 2022 and the 1999 Constitution.
Furthermore, according to Rhodes-Vivour, the governor was not legitimately elected with a majority of the valid votes cast in the election.
The petitioners’ attorneys adopted their final written submissions to the tribunal on August 12.
The petition’s first respondent, INEC, opted to submit two documents as evidence rather than call any witnesses. These documents were accepted as exhibits by the tribunal.
Additionally, the electoral body requested that the tribunal reject Rhodes-Viviour’s petition for a lack of evidence.
The petition’s second and third respondents, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his deputy, also requested that the tribunal take note of the petitioner’s lack of concern for the petition because he neither filed a witness statement nor showed up in person to present his own case.
The PDP governorship candidate, for his part, requested that Sanwo-Olu and Rhodes-Vivour be disqualified for failing to follow the requirements of the Electoral Act of 2022 and INEC’s rules.
