The Supreme Court on Thursday fixed May
27, 2015 for judgment in the appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic
Party’s candidate in the August 9, 2014 governorship election in Osun
State, Iyiola Omisore, against the election of the All Progressives
Congress’ candidate, the incumbent Governor Rauf Aregbesola.
The seven-man panel of the apex court,
led by Justice John Fabiyi, fixed the date for judgment after parties
adopted and argued their respective briefs on Thursday.
Omisore, who was personally present in
court during the Thursday’s proceedings, urged the apex court, through
his counsel, Dr. Alex Izinyon (SAN), to set aside the concurrent
judgments of the two lower courts.
Omisore and his party had filed the
appeals against the decisions of the Justice Gana Mshelia-led panel of
the Court of Appeal in Akure which, on April 2, 2015, affirmed the
earlier judgment of the Osun State Governorship Election Petitions
Tribunal.
The
Justice Elizabeth Ikpejime-led tribunal had on February 6, 2015
dismissed Omisore’s petition for lacking in merit and affirmed
Aregbesola’s victory.
Izinyon, who filed two separate appeals
on behalf of Omisore and the PDP challenging the decision of the Court
of Appeal, urged the Supreme Court to allow his appeals and dismiss the
cross-appeal filed by Aregbeso
One of the appeals emanated from the main
judgment of the Court of Appeal while the other appeal and the
respondents’ cross-appeal arose from the decision of the appellate court
on the admissibility of a document in favour of the petitioners at the
tribunal.
But the three respondents to the appeals –
Aregbesola, the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission –
who were represented by different lawyers, separately urged the court
to dismiss the appeals.
Izinyon, who led other five SANs and a
battery of other junior lawyers, while arguing the appellants’ briefs,
argued that both the tribunal and the Court of Appeal identified
irregularities characterising the conduct of the election but refused to
make the proper findings concerning them.
He said, “The trial court said it
identified irregularities but the Court of Appeal did not make any
finding as it ought to do in respect of alleged irregularities in the
election.
“We complained about the analysis of
irregularities by the court below but it was ignored. The burden of
proof and the onus of proof were misapplied by the court below.
“We urge this court (Supreme Court) to hold that lack of finding on the irregularities led to miscarriage of justice.”
The counsel for Aregbesola, Chief Akin
Olujinmi (SAN), that of APC, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), and that of the
INEC, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN), who canvassed similar arguments
in their separate responses, urged the apex court to dismiss the two
appeals of the appellants.
They argued that with the 43 witnesses
called by the appellants giving hearsay evidence and also had their
evidence discredited during cross-examination, there was nothing left on
which the petition could stand.
Olujinmi 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.
Your Lordships, 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 to allow these appeals? My answer is none.
Akeredolu contended that the judgment of
the courts below could not be faulted as the Court of Appeal held in its
judgment that the reports of the expert witnesses of the appellants
were not more than the deduction any literate person could make.
Akeredolu, who appeared with Mr. Femi
Falana (SAN) for the APC, said, “In rejecting their reports, the Court
of Appeal held that there was no expertise and that any literate person
could make the deduction.
No comments:
Post a Comment