Tribunal decides LP, PDP petitions against Sanwo-Olu’s election

In two cases challenging the election of Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, the Lagos State Election Petition Tribunal has reserved judgment.

On Saturday, the three-person tribunal presided over by Justice Arum Ashom said that it will inform the petition’s parties of the date on which the verdict would be rendered.

After the parties’ attorneys adopted the final written addresses, Ashom informed them of this.

Sanwo-Olu and Hazmat of the All Progressives Congress are facing opposition from the Labour Party’s Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour and the People’s Democratic Party’s Abdulazeez Adeniran (also known as Jandor).

The petition’s first respondent is the Independent National Electoral Commission; the second and third respondents are Sanwo-Olu and Hamzat, respectively.

Fourteenth respondent is APC.

On March 18, there was an election for governor.

On Saturday, Hamzat was present in court but neither of the petitioners were.

While adopting his final written address, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), the attorney for Sanwo-Olu, requested that the court dismiss the petitions as being without merit.

He viewed the petitions as a teaching tool.

He asserted that the petitioners’ speeches made no mention of the second respondent and focused primarily on the third respondent.

They have dropped their claims against the second respondent as well as their petitions.

He said that Rhodes-Vivour’s claims that the deputy governor was ineligible for the election had no merit.

Olanipekun contended that the claims that Hamzat had renounced his Nigerian citizenship and taken an oath of loyalty to the United States were not sufficiently supported by evidence.

The APC’s legal representative, Mr. Abiodun Owonikoko (SAN), also claimed that the petitioners had not adequately substantiated their claim regarding Hamzat’s citizenship.

In adopting his final written address, Mr. Charles Edosonwan (SAN), counsel for INEC, requested that the Tribunal dismiss the petitions due to a lack of evidence.

One of the concerns addressed by the petitioners, he continued, is whether the election was conducted in largely accordance with the Electoral Act. They haven’t offered a shred of evidence, in our opinion, to demonstrate that it wasn’t.

In a state with 13,325 voting locations, a petition created on the basis of such an allegation was attempted to be proven by 10 witnesses.

The petition is seriously contested, he declared.

To support his clients’ argument that Hamzat was ineligible to run for office, Mr. Olatunji Benson, counsel to the LP and its governorship candidate Rhodes-Vivour, sought the tribunal to affirm that stance.

He requested that the tribunal declare Rhodes-Vivour the new governor of Lagos State and remove Sanwo-Olu and Hamzat from office.

Sanwo-Olu’s legal representative for PDP, Mr. Clement Onwuenwunor, also adopted his last written address in which he asserted that Sanwo-Olu was ineligible to serve as governor because he lacked a secondary school diploma.