The fate of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State will be decided today by the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which will deliver its judgment on the petitions filed by opposition parties challenging his re-election in the March 18 poll.
The tribunal, led by Justice Arum Ashom, had communicated at the weekend that the judgment would be delivered on Monday (today) after the lawyers in the petitions adopted their final written addresses on August 12.
The petitioners are the Labour Party (LP) and its candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor.
They are seeking to nullify the election of Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), after scoring 762,134 votes. The LP candidate came second with 312,329 votes, while the PDP candidate came third with 62,449 votes.
The petitioners alleged that the election was marred by irregularities, such as violence, over voting, vote suppression and disenfranchisement of thousands of electorates.
They also accused the ruling party of manipulating the results in favour of Sanwo-Olu. They urged the tribunal to order a fresh election or declare them as the rightful winners of the poll.
Sanwo-Olu, who contested for his second term, denied the allegations and maintained that he won the election fairly and credibly. He asked the tribunal to dismiss the petitions for lacking in merit and substance. He also argued that the petitioners failed to prove their claims with credible evidence and witnesses.
The tribunal will determine whether the petitioners have established their grounds for challenging the election and whether Sanwo-Olu is duly elected as the governor of Lagos State. The judgment is expected to put an end to the legal battle over the governorship seat of Nigeria’s commercial capital.
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