Tribunal gives verdict on Oyo State Governorship Election

The victory of Governor Seyi Makinde in the 2023 gubernatorial poll in Oyo state has been upheld by the election petition tribunal of the state.

Recall that Governor Makinde was declared the winner of the Oyo State gubernatorial polls by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) after polling 563,756 votes to win in 31 of the 33 LGAs in the state.

Governor Makinde's closest rival, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Teslim Folarin, polled 256,685 votes to emerge second in the election, while Accord Party, Adebayo Adelabu polled 38,357 votes to emerge third.

Meanwhile, the Action Alliance (AA) candidate, Babatunde Ajala, was not satisfied with the outcome of the election and resorted to filing a petition against Governor Makinde seeking the nullification of his election.

As reported by TheCable, Ajala also named INEC and the PDP in the petition.

However, the three-member panel led by Ejiron Emudainohwo struck out Ajala's petition against all three respondents.

As reported by Vanguard, it was gathered that the tribunal also awarded a cost of N600,000 against the AA guber candidate – N100,000 in favour of INEC and N250,000 each in favour of Makinde and the PDP, respectively.

Before delivering its ruling, the attorney to the plaintiff, Etibo Orowo King, prayed to the court to discontinue the suit.

He said: “My prayer is for the cancellation of the result of the election. But, on further re-evaluation, we decided to discontinue the case in the interest of peace and tranquillity.”

In a counter-response to the plea of the plaintiff, the attorney to Gov Makinde and PDP urged the court to dismiss the case instead.

They said: “The petitioner asked that the case be struck out. We want the case to be dismissed. It is a petition that is dead on arrival.”