OSUN POLLS – The Election Petition Tribunal constituted to hear the petitions arising from the Osun State governorship election has granted an exparte order to Senator Ademola Adeleke restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission from altering election results as well as information contained in the card reader machines and other documents used for the poll.
The tribunal headed by Justice T.A. Igoche, which also has Justice P.A. Obayi, granted the order in Osogbo on Thursday during its sitting before the pre-hearing session.
Adeleke, who is the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, had through his counsel, Mr Nathaniel Oke (SAN), filed an exparte application seeking the leave of the tribunal to file the application before the pre-hearing session.
The applicant also sought the leave of the tribunal to inspect and obtain certified true copies of electoral documents and materials in the custody of INEC; an order to conduct physical inspection and verification of electoral materials and machines as well as used and unused ballots, among others.
Adeleke also applied for an order to compel INEC to produce and print out list of permanent voter cards distribution statistics per polling units and an order restraining INEC from altering extracted information from card readers, election results from polling unit level to state level as well as ballot papers used for the conduct of the governorship election in Osun State.
Adeleke predicated his application on the grounds that he was the candidate that contested the election held on September 22, 2018 and the rerun election held on September 27, 2018 on the platform of the PDP.
The application read, among others, “That the total number of votes won by the 1st applicant on the 22nd day of September, 2018 was 245,698 while the 1st respondent scored 245,345.
“That the 1st applicant was the winner of the election and ought to have been so declared by the 3rd respondent (INEC). That the 3rd respondent declared the election inconclusive; hence, a rerun was conducted on the 27th day of September 2018.
“That the rerun election was marred by electoral violence, vote-buying, stuffing of ballot papers, multiple thumb-printing and voting and allocation of votes by the 3rd respondent.”
