INSIDE EKITI TRIBUNAL
PETITIONERS’ WEEK OF CONTRADICTIONS, GAFFES AND RECANT DRAMA BEFORE THREE-MEMBER PANEL OF JUDGES
BY ODUNAYO OGUNMOLA
Many residents of Ekiti State thought that the re-election of Governor Biodun Oyebanji at the last governorship election would not be challenged in court following the decision of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Dr Wole Oluyede, to withdraw his petition.
Also, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Isaac Adebayo Alade, withdrew and his name was struck off the petition but the continued prosecution of the case pitched the members of the party’s local chapter in Ekiti against some external interests who chose to maintain the petition in court.
The Action Alliance (AA) and its candidate, Matthew Olu Omotoso, are pursuing the petition they filed before the Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Ado Ekiti which is led by Justice Abubakar Idris Kutigi.
For the records, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji received 319,224 votes to be declared the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The PDP and its flag bearer, Oluyede polled 40,543. The SDP and its candidate, Alade garnered 179 votes while the AA and its flag bearer, Omotoso obtained 126 votes. It should be noted that no political party had its name or logo excluded from the ballot papers used for the conduct of the June 20, 2026 governorship poll.
Judging by the paltry votes received by both the SDP and the AA, some observers believe that Oyebanji’s victory was not supposed to be challenged in court by the two smaller parties but they are exercising their constitutional rights to seek redress in court having participated in the election and aggrieved with the outcome.
Some observers wonder how political parties that scored 179 and 126 votes would want the court to nullify an election in which the winning party polled 319,224 votes noting that the margin is just too gargantuan for their petitions to succeed in court.
The two petitions are before the three-member jury who are expected to decide based on the weight of evidence before it. Both parties (the SDP and the AA) had opened their cases after their lawyers struggled to assemble their witnesses and bring them to court after several adjournments.
While the SDP had brought about 20 witnesses to court to give evidence, the AA had just brought only one witness to court after the Tribunal Chairman had advised the party (AA) to close its case after several failed promises to bring witnesses to court to give evidence.
The SDP witnesses had treated the tribunal to a lot of drama in the last two weeks as their testimonies were riddled with contradictions, gaffes, recants, and very weak evidence to substantiate their allegations that the election was neither free nor fair.
Many of the weaknesses during their cross-examination by lawyers to INEC and Governor Oyebanji failed to respond to questions posed to them by refusing to talk for long period of time before the Tribunal Chairman intervened several times by lecturing them on the need to answer questions in the best way they understand them and also speak louder for them to be heard and recorded.
A common feature among the female witnesses of the SDP was claiming to be “males for the purpose of their party’s case” while actually they were females by gender and anatomy. It was an issue that led to their serious grilling by the respondents’ counsel.
Some of the SDP witnesses disowned some paragraphs of their depositions in their witness statements on oath by recanting on what they had deposed there amidst other contradictions and gaffes in their evidence.
One of them, Folasade Imade, told the Tribunal that the BVAS machine rejected her voter card because it has two voters’ heads in the picture box on the card. Another witness, Funke Alakuro, said she did not know the first petitioner in the case she is giving evidence on.
Majority of the SDP witnesses who were designated as agents by their party told the Tribunal that they were not given official tags by INEC but refused to give reasons why they were not given tags as duly recognized representatives of their party.
The SDP witnesses admitted that they don’t have official letters appointing them as agents to represent their political party on the election day, that they were appointed via phone calls by their state chairman.
Some of them who alleged vote buying in their units and mentioned figures allegedly shared admitted under cross-examination that they did not count the alleged sums to actually know the figures they bandied inside the witness box.
Next week will be crucial for both the SDP and the AA as they are expected to bring more witnesses to the tribunal to prove their petitions. Time is going and the clock is ticking away to prove that the election did not comply with the Electoral Act.
INEC and Oyebanji are expected to open their cases by the time the petitioners might have closed theirs. The proceedings will continue to generate interests within and outside Ekiti in days to come.