Governor Oyetola: Supreme Court Restored the Sanctity of Law and Ballot
The Supreme Court has restored the sanctity of law and the ballot of the 2018 Osun State governorship election. THE Justice Research Center has hailed the conduct of the Sept 22, 2018 governorship election in Osun State, describing the outcome of the election as a solid reflection of the will of the people of the state. Supreme Court used between March and July to restore the sanctity of the law and ballot box.
The Supreme Court has affirmed Gboyega Oyetola as the authentic winner of the 2018 Osun State governorship election.
The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ademola Adeleke, lost his appeal before the apex court in its ruling on Friday, July 5, 2019.
Adeleke and the PDP had filed an appeal before the court after they lost to Oyetola and his All Progressives Congress (APC) at the Court of Appeal
In May 2019, the Court of Appeal had upheld Oyetola’s victory after an election tribunal initially ruled, in March, that Adeleke won the election.
The appellate court had ruled that the alleged absence of Justice Peter Obiorah, who read the election tribunal’s majority judgement, during a previous sitting when two witnesses testified and tendered exhibits nullified the tribunal’s judgement.
Oyetola had argued that the judge could not have seen the two witnesses and properly examined them properly, making it unlawful for him to have authored a judgement in which he reviewed the evidence given by the witnesses.
The Supreme Court has validated the election of Gboyega Oyetola as the governor of Osun State. The apex court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal which nullified the March 22 judgement of the Osun State election petition tribunal.
The tribunal had declared Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party as the winner of the September 2018 election.
The Supreme Court in a split judgement agreed substantially with the Court of Appeal which ruled that a majority judgement delivered at the tribunal was a nullity.
The court said the judge who had read the majority judgement at the tribunal, Peter Obiora, was evidently absent on February 6, following the documents before the court. It said the failure of Mr Obiora to be present on that day meant that the tribunal lacked the authorities to have given any judgment on the matter.
Two of the seven members of the Supreme Court panel, however, disagreed with the ruling. The Supreme Court ruling was read by Bode Rhodes-Vivour.
Flashback to 2007: a few days before Nigerians were to go to the polls, former president Olusegun Obasanjo publicly declared the presidential election to be a “do or die” affair for him and his ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The election was won by the PDP and Obasanjo was replaced by an ailing successor, Musa Yar’Adua. At both presidential and gubernatorial level, the process was condemned as heavily flawed by local and international observers – marred by widespread vote-rigging, ballot stuffing and violence that government security forces were complicit in.
Years later much has changed in the nation’s electoral tradition except that the electoral stakes have improved from “do or die” to restoration of law and ballot. This is the case across all three tiers of the federation. For Nigerians, electoral processes are characterised by palpable tension, anxiety and fear.
In Osun, insufficient attention was paid to the processes through which PDP candidate emerged for the 2018 election. The tragedy of democratic elections in Osun is that the PDP did not allow genuine and morally sound candidates to emerge because there is still controversy over Senator Adeleke qualifications. At the end of the day, the PDP was left to choose a poorly educated person.
The Supreme Court and Court of Appeal have supported the struggle to restore the sanctity of the law and ballot and uphold democracy in Osun State in compliance with the 1999 Constitution as amended. Supreme Court has been on the forefront of the movement for the restoration of democracy and rendered several sacrifices to uphold democracy in the country.
Restoration Of Sanctity Of The Law and Ballot Box in Osun, supreme court has, again, shown that elections are not won on the pages of newspaper or by enormity of media propaganda or noise-making. The great people of Osun State have adamantly refused to be contaminated by the propaganda virus of the Africa’s noisiest opposition political party in Nigeria. This is the most striking thing about the giant strides at restoring sanctity of the ballot box on the country’s electoral polity.
When PDP lost Osun August 2014 and 2018 polls, they have relocated to the pages of newspaper and screens of politically oiled television stations and radios. When their propaganda refused to make public relevance, they filed papers in court and took over the functions of its proceedings on the pages of newspaper and visual/audio media, yet at the end, their arguments became “orbiter dictum” and woefully failed the litmus test of “ratio decidendi”. They cried and ran to the court of first instance for “justice”, but the court in her wisdom, sent them packing.
The restoration of sanctity of law and ballot in Osun promote Good governance, among other things, participatory, transparent and accountable at the local government level. It is also effective and equitable. It promotes the rule of law. Good governance ensures that political, social and economic priorities are based on broad consensus in society and that the voices of the poorest and the most vulnerable are heard in decision-making over the allocation of resources.
Supreme Court has said the era of conducting elections that are not credible is over in the country and put measures in place to ensure that elections in the states are peaceful, free and fair. What is important to us is to conduct a free, fair and credible election. The people of Osun are happy that Supreme Court does this and also enhance democratic values that they are trying to build up in this country. The whole idea is for us to evolve a process where the citizens come out and believe in a process that is credible and then when you do this and people are able to see elections that come at all level, they will be excited to do it because they know that it’s been credible, peaceful and there is no violence and that is what we as government have been preaching.
Interestingly, the APC campaigned by way of organising public rallies in all local government headquarters with a charge to deepen the campaign from home to home. APC had campaigned vigorously across the 30 councils, and that PDP was afraid of the ground swell of support for the APC, hence “they have resorted to cheap lies.”
APC went round all the local government areas campaigning for Governor Oyetola, and challenged the opposition to do a semblance of campaign so that people will appreciate who they are voting for. But they chose to sit back, and that has shown clearly that the people are with Oyetola, PDP is making unfounded allegations.
The outcome of the election was a favourable referendum of the performance of former Governor Aregbesola- led administration, and an indicator of the outcome of the 2019 election. It is unfortunate that the PDP in Osun State has, like the proverbial ostrich, buried its head in the sand and is totally oblivious of the political realities on ground in Osun State, that the APC is unshakable, immovable and unperturbed by their ranting and wailing about the supreme court judgment.
