The Supreme Court on Thursday, January 11, reserved judgment on the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate in the 2023 Ogun state governorship election, Ladi Adebutu.
This is as the five-member panel led by Justice John Okoro declined to hear the cross-appeals filed by the All Progressive Congress, APC, and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, insisting that it abides by the outcome of the main appeal filed by Adebutu.
The appeal by Adebutu is seeking the nullification of the declaration of the election of Dapo Abiodun.
The PDP and its governorship candidate in Ogun state, Adebutu, in July 2023, tendered an alleged jail booking record and incident report from Florida Metropolitan Police, in the United States as evidence before the State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal where they are challenging the election of Governor Abiodun.
INEC had declared Abiodun the winner of the March 18, 2023, governorship election in the state.
Rejecting the result, PDP and Adebutu approached the tribunal requesting that Abiodun’s election be nullified.
At the resumed hearing, counsel for Adebutu and the PDP, Chris Uche, SAN, called one of their witnesses, the Ogun State PDP youth leader, Oyejide Sunkanmi, to give evidence against Abiodun.
Oyejide, therefore referred to an alleged jail booking record and incident report from Florida Metropolitan Police, US against Abiodun.
PDP counsel, Uche tendered the documents and they were admitted as evidence in support of the PDP and Adebutu’s case.
The opposition party had in the build-up to the governorship election alleged that Abiodun was jailed in Miami Dade Florida, USA for credit card fraud in 1986.
The tribunal also admitted in evidence a picture of thugs on motorcycles allegedly carting away ballot boxes.
It also admitted a preloaded top-up card allegedly used for vote-buying during the election.
Also tendered and admitted in evidence, were two letters written by the PDP to INEC, complaining about the breach of the principle of margin lead.
Counsel for INEC, Dr Remi Olatubora, SAN, counsel for Abiodun, Prof. Taiwo Osipitan, SAN, and counsel for the APC, Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, all reserved their objections to the admissibility of the documents till their final written addresses.
Olatubora described the documents as cancerous, saying they are not true.
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