For the son of the late Governor Adebayo Alao Akala, Olamiju, it was sweet victory today as the Election petition tribunal panel 2 sitting at the High Court, Iyaganku Ibadan dismissed the petition filed against him by Olawale Ojetunde Sunday and the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP.
Ojetunde had petitioned the Tribunal seeking to upturn the return of Olamiju Akala on the ground of non compliance with the Electoral Act.
In his petition, he started that the logo of his party, the NNPP was omitted on the ballot papers.
However, in a unanimous decision of the Tribunal, the claims of the petitioners were completely turned down.
The chairman of the three man panel while reading the judgment, formulated two issues for determination.
On the first issue which bothers on the competence of the petition itself, the Tribunal held that the issues raised were pre election matters as stipulated by the Electoral Act.
It observed that the NNPP at no material time provided evidence of complaints in writing to INEC as the Electoral Act mandated.
The Tribunal however went ahead to deal with the substance of the petition in the presumption that It was wrong to dismiss the petition based on issue one which dealt with the competence of the petition.
On the second issue which dealt with burden of proof, the Tribunal held that the burden of proof lies on the petitioners to proof their petition and that the petitoner would only succeed on the strength of their case and not on any perceived weakness of the case of the respondents.
The Tribunal observed that the additional witnesses brought by petitioners to support their case are invalid witnesses because their statements on oath were filled outside the 21 days stipulated by Law.
Two other witnesses of the petitioners were also considered invalid on the grounds that one of them claimed to be in Ogbomosho on the day he purportedly made his statement on oath and the other one admitted before the Tribunal that she could not read nor write in English and yet, her statement on oath was not accompanied with a jurat.
Another witness who claimed to be in Abuja to represent NNPP in a meeting between INEC and National Chairmen and secretaries of political parties was found to be an incompetent witness because he did not tell the Tribunal that he was the National Chairman of NNPP and the letter tendered by him shows that only National Chairmen and secretaries of political parties were invited to a meeting he gave evidence about before the Tribunal.
The Tribunal in Its final analysis held that throughout the proceedings, the petitioners failed to establish that it submitted a Logo different from the one on the ballot papers for the election of 25 February, 2023 to INEC.
It also held that the petitoners failed to show how the alleged disenfranchisement of voters affected the final results of the election, having neglected to call witnesses with valid voters cards across the Federal Constituency who could not vote due to a confusion arising from the alleged incorrect Logo of NNPP.
The Tribunal therefore dismissed the petition for lacking in merits and a sum of five hundred thousand Naira was awarded to the respondents.
Sola Abegunde.
