Adelabu, APC Head to Tribunal over Makinde’s Victory in Oyo

Adelabu, APC Head to Tribunal over Makinde’s Victory in Oyo

By Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the March 9 election in Oyo State, Mr. Adebayo Adelabu, has filed a suit before the Election Petitions Tribunal and prayed it to overturn the victory of the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and governor-elect, Mr. Seyi Makinde.

Adelabu filed the suit alongside his party, whose state chairman, Chief Akin Oke, had after the result of the election was announced, said the party was considering court case to upturn the victory of Makinde of PDP.

Makinde was on the night of March 10 declared the winner of the governorship election by the state Returning Officer, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, having polled 515,621 votes to defeat Adelabu who scored 357,982 votes.

The results indicated that Makinde defeated Adelabu with a total of 157,639 votes.

Oke said: “I want to repeat what I said concerning the outcome of the last governorship election. First, I want to greet all the people who genuinely voted for us. But where there is a genuine case of fraud, of course why not go to court?

“Do you want us to continue to support fraud? I repeat we will go to court once there are enough grounds to do so.”

On Tuesday, the APC made real its threat as it was listed as the second petitioner.

The petition is having Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as first respondent, while Makinde and PDP are second and third respondents, respectively.

But in a swift reaction, the state Secretary of PDP, Mr. Wasiu Adeleke, said there was no cause for alarm because it was glaring from the results across all the five geopolitical zones of the state that “Seyi Makinde won overwhelmingly and polled the highest number of votes and was subsequently declared as winner”.

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