Osun Election: Tribunal Accepts BVAS Reports Showing Over-voting Against Adeleke

NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIANovember 4, 2022

2 minutes read

The Osun State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal has admitted in evidence, the Certified True Copies (CTC) of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) reports tendered by Governor Oyetola.

The reports alleged shows alleged over-voting in favour of Sen. Ademola Adeleke, during the July 16 governorship election in the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalled that Governor Oyetola and APC had on August 5 submitted a petition before the tribunal in Osogbo.

Oyetola and APC were challenging the election results from 749 polling units across 10 local government areas of the state for various alleged electoral malpractice, especially over-voting.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Adeleke as the winner of the July 16 governorship election, having polled 403, 271 votes against 375,027 polled by Oyetola.

Meanwhile, the tribunal, led by Justice Tertsea Kume also admitted in evidence Adeleke’s Diploma Certificate from Penn Foster High School, B.Sc Certificate from Atlanta Metropolitan State College, Letter of Attestation dated 22/5/2016 from Ede Muslim High School, NYSC Certificate of Exception and some other documents as exhibits.

Also admitted are, forms EC8As, for Olorunda, Obokun and Ila local governments, forms EC8Bs which are the results of the wards and forms EC8Cs – the results of each of the 10 local governments being challenged, forms EC8D which is the summary of the overall result, EC8Es the declaration of the result and form EC9.

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Governor Adegboyega Oyetola and the All Progressives Congress (APC) are challenging the declaration of Adeleke by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as a winner of the election in 10 local government areas, just as it is also challenging his qualification to stand for the election.

At the resumed hearing of the petition on Thursday, counsel for Oyetola, Dr Saka Layoonu (SAN) tendered additional documentary evidence, including the CTC of the much-celebrated BVAS reports which indicated that the number of accredited voters is lower than the total number of votes cast in the said councils.

Layoonu, while formally tendering the documents, informed the court that the evidence had been jointly cross-checked by both parties and the secretariat of the tribunal and confirmed to be accurate.

Respondents’ counsels, Jamiu Olabode (INEC), Niyi Owolade (Adeleke) and Nathaniel Oke, SAN (PDP) objected to the admissibility of the documents and indicated that they would canvass arguments in the final written addresses.

The tribunal, in its ruling, admitted the documents in evidence, marked them as exhibits and adjourned till November 16.

Earlier, the PDP counsel, Oke raised the alarm before the court alleging that the media reports being circulated were not actually what transpired in court, saying, “My Lords, we are not comfortable with the reports of proceedings by pressmen in this court”.

But the tribunal Chairman, while responding asked for evidence, hard facts to that effect.

The panel further said it was unaware of any inaccurate reportage of its proceedings, saying, “we can’t comment on what we don’t know unless you come up with hard facts. We are not here for social media commentaries.”