The election of Governor Dapo Abiodun as the duly elected Governor of Ogun State in the 18th March Governorship poll has been re-affirmed by the Supreme Court.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had declared APC’s Abiodun winner with 276298 votes against his closest challenger: Oladipupo Adebutu of the PDP who scored 262383 votes.
Dissatisfied with the result, Adebutu & PDP approached the tribunal for redress.
The tribunal unanimously dismissed the petition for been “incompetent, defective, disjunctive and lack merits.”
Adebutu approached the appeal Court seeking a reversal of the tribunal decision, however, in a 2-1 decision, the Appellate Court upheld the decision of the tribunal.
The dissenting judgement held that INEC ought not to have declared Abiodun winner since the margin of lead was less than the number of cancelled votes.
Justice Tijjani Abubakar JSC upheld the concurrent findings of the lower courts and held that the appellants could not discharge the burden of proof placed on them.
