21 days after the verdict of the tribunal sitting in Oyo upheld the victory of Seyi Makinde as the winner of March 9, 2019 Oyo gubernatorial election, the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Adebayo Adelabu has filed an application form to appeal the judgement of the tribunal.
WITHIN NIGERIA had earlier reported that Adelabu and his party, APC had challenged the declaration of Seyi Makinde by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as winner of the guber election in the state.
According to Nation reports, the notice of appeal was filed on Saturday October 5, 2019 where INEC, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Engr. Seyi Makinde were listed as respondents, while the appellants are the APC and Adelabu.
Among the grounds of appeal, as contained in the notice, was that the three-man tribunal headed by Justice Mohammed Sirajo, erred in its evaluation of evidence presented by the petitioners, and had in its judgment destroyed completely the petitioners’ petition.
The petitioners, who appealed against the whole judgment, said: “The honourable trial tribunal erred in law in dismissing the petition of the appellants, and truncated the rights of the appellants to fair hearing by the way and manner it reviewed and evaluated the evidence of the parties, thereby totally destroying the case of the appellants”.
Makinde had polled 515,621 votes to defeat his closest rival, Adelabu, who had 357,982 votes.
The petitioners said that Makinde was not duly elected by majority of lawful votes, adding that the election was marred by failure to comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act.
