The Supreme Court has fixed May 27 for judgment in the appeal by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the August 9 governorship election in Osun State, Iyiola Omisore. Omisore is challenging the April 2 decision of the Court of Appeal, affirming the judgment of the Governorship Election Tribunal, which upheld the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Governor Rauf Aregbesola. Yesterday, parties made their final arguments and adopted their processes, following which the court adjourned till May 27 for judgment. The proceedings lasted about three hours. Alex Iziyon, who led five others for the appellant, urged the court to set aside the concurrent judgments of the two lower courts (the tribunal and Court of Appeal) and allow the two appeals filed against the Court of Appeal's decisions on the main appeal and the cross-appeal. Iziyon argued that both the tribunal and the Court of Appeal identified irregularities in the election but refused to make the proper findings concerning them. Former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Akin Olujinmi, who led Kola Awodein for Aregbesola, urged the court to dismiss the appeals, but to uphold the cross appeal he filed. He said: “This is a case in which the appellants called 43 witnesses and only seven were party agents. The rest were called supervisors. The PW15 and PW35 which they called experts said ‘we derived our evidence from what our agents told us’. “The evidence is clearly hearsay and there was no way the tribunal could have made any use of it other than to treat as a mere hearsay. The seven party agents called were discredited. PW1 who was their star witness, said he was told what he told there court. “The so called experts admitted that their reports were false. My lordship, there is no evidence to rely on in order to sustain the petition. My question is that is there any element of evidence to rely on to get this court allow these appeals? My answer is none.” Olujinmi urged the court to dismiss them on the ground that the appellant changed the name of a party to the case, APC to All Peoples Progressives Party, without the leave of the court. APC's lawyer Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, who argued in similar vein, said: “In rejecting their reports, the Court of Appeal held that there was no expertise and that any literate person could make the deduction. They were not experts. There is no technical or scientific deduction in the reports. The findings of the court below cannot be faulted. “No portion of the judgment where the court agreed that there were irregularities. There is no such finding on record at the tribunal or at the court of appeal.“ Lawyer to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Adegboyega Awomolo also urged the court to dismiss the appeals and uphold the findings of the tribunal and lower court.
