OYEBANJI DEFENDS RE-ELECTION WITH INEC DOCUMENTS, CLOSES CASE AT EKITI TRIBUNAL
BY ODUNAYO OGUNMOLA
Ekiti State Governor, Mr Biodun Oyebanji, on Tuesday tendered key documents before the Election Petitions Tribunal in defence of the victory he achieved at the June 20 governorship election.
Oyebanji, the flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who is the 2nd Respondent in separate petitions filed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Action Alliance (AA), opened his defence by tendering the documents and subsequently closed his defence thereafter.
In the petitions filed against his return by the two opposition parties, the Ekiti Governor through his lead counsel, Dr Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN tendered Certified True Copies (CTCs) of sensitive electoral documents obtained from the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The documents tendered by the Governor included Form EC8D, which was the Summary of results from the Local Government Areas Collation at the state level; Form EC8E, which was the official result sheet for the governorship election as declared at the conclusion of collation and the INEC official receipt for payment of CTCs of election results.
In the two petitions, all the documents tendered by the 2nd Respondent (Oyebanji) were admitted and marked as exhibits. There was no objection to the admissibility of the documents tendered by the Governor from the lead counsel to INEC, Mr Sulaiman Ibrahim, SAN and Mrs Olaoluwa Adeoti, who held brief for the lead counsel to SDP and AA, Mr Adewole Adebayo.
Ikpeazu said having reviewed the evidence led in chief by the petitioners and the evidence led by Oyebanji’s legal team during the cross-examination of the witnesses brought to court by the petitioners, the 2nd Respondent had no intention to call any witness.
Ikpeazu, on behalf of the Governor applied to close the case of his client before the tribunal. There was no objection from counsel to the petitioners (SDP and AA) and counsel to INEC.
Earlier in the day, counsel to INEC, Mr Sulaiman Ibrahim, SAN and his colleague, Mrs Wendy Kuku, SAN also tendered relevant documents in support of the conduct and declaration of results of the election conducted by the nation’s foremost electoral agency.
The documents tendered by INEC legal team included CTCs of Form EC8D, the summary of results from all the 16 local government areas collated at the state level and Form EC8E which was the official result sheet for the Ekiti governorship election.
There was no objection from counsel to Oyebanji and counsel to SDP and AA to the admissibility of the documents. The documents were subsequently admitted and marked as exhibits by the three-member panel led by the Chairman, Justice Abubakar Idris Kutigi.
While Ibrahim closed the case for INEC in the SDP petition, Kuku closed the case for the electoral umpire in the AA petition.
The two senior lawyers while closing their client’s case in the two petitions said they were satisfied with the evidence obtained during the evidence in chief of the petitioners’ witnesses and in their cross-examination by the respondents’ counsel.
Panel Chairman, Justice Kutigi in short rulings for the two petitions urged all parties to file and exchange written addresses and replies within the time allowed by law. He subsequently adjourned the sitting till Friday, November 20 for the adoption of written addresses by parties in the petitions.
All lead counsel to parties in the petitions commended the judges on the panel for their industry and patience praying for wisdom in the onerous assignment of scrutinizing all the evidence before them as the proceedings gradually inch to conclusion.
The SDP and AA had closed their cases before the Tribunal on Thursday, October 24 with no further witnesses to call as the day fell on the final day allowed by law for the prosecution of their petitions.
Oyebanji, the APC candidate, polled 319,224 votes to secure a historic back-to-back re-election beating the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Wole Oluyede who scored 40,543 votes to the seond place. Oluyede had withdrawn a petition he earlier filed from the Tribunal.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) flag bearer in the governorship poll, Chief Dare Bejide came third with 12,872 votes. Bejide did not file any petition before the Tribunal.
The SDP candidate, Mr Adebayo Alade who later withdrew from his party’s petition, polled 179 votes while the AA flag bearer, Mr Olu Omotoso scored 126 votes at the 2026 Ekiti governorship poll.