BREAKING: APC Records Preliminary Defeat At Lagos Tribunal (DETAILS)

BREAKING: APC Records Preliminary Defeat At Lagos Tribunal (DETAILS)

The Lagos State Governorship Election Tribunal dismissed the preliminary objection filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC), which sought the dismissal of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) petition. The objection was rejected because the petitioner did not comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act regarding the payment of security costs.

Justice Mikail Abdullahi, a member of the tribunal’s three-member panel, read some preliminary motions challenging certain aspects of the petition and dismissed the objection.

Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the Labour Party’s governorship candidate, and Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, are contesting the victory of Sanwo-Olu in the March 18, 2023, governorship election.

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The Independent National Electoral Commission declared Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the March 18 governorship election. Sanwo-Olu won by a wide margin, defeating Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party, who came in second.

The Lagos State Governor garnered 762,134 votes, while Rhodes-Vivour secured 312,329 votes. Jide Adediran (Jandor) of the PDP came in a distant third, with 62,449 votes.

In the petition filed by Adediran and his party, the PDP, the petitioners raised two main grounds, asserting that the Governor of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, were not qualified to contest at the time of the election.

Adediran also claimed that the governorship candidate of the Labour Party, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, who was declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission as having received the second-highest number of votes, was also not qualified to contest at the time of the election.

While INEC is listed as the first respondent, Sanwo-Olu, Hamzat, APC, Rhodes-Vivour, and the LP are listed as the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth respondents respectively.

The PDP’s governorship candidate called for the disqualification of the All Progressives Congress and the Labour Party candidates in the election for “non-compliance” with the Electoral Act of 2022, as well as INEC’s guidelines.

However, the APC’s preliminary objection to strike out the PDP’s petition was dismissed by the tribunal.

Some of the motions of the second and third respondents to strike out certain paragraphs of the petition and additional statements on oaths filed outside the 21-day period provided by the Electoral Act succeeded in part.

Paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 of the petition were struck out, and the additional statement on oath that mirrored the struck-out paragraphs was also struck out.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party’s petition to have its name struck out from the PDP’s petition was successful.

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