THE candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the March 18 governorship election in Lagos State, AbdulAzeez Adeniran, aka Jandor, has appealed the judgment of the election petitions tribunal, which affirmed Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the duly elected governor of the state.
This was disclosed in a statement on Friday, October 13, by the Head of Media and Communications for Jandor4Governor Campaign Organisation, Gbenga Ogunleye.
According to Ogunleye, Jandor expressed dissatisfaction with the tribunal’s ruling in a 34-ground notice of appeal.
His appeal seeks to upturn the “miscarriage of laws that characterised the tribunal judgment.”
He stated, among others, that the tribunal erred in law and its conclusion, which dismissed his petition to challenge the qualifications of Sanwo-Olu and his running mate, Obafemi Hamzat, as winners of the March 18 governorship election in the state.
On September 25, The ICIR reported the Lagos State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal affirming Sanwo-Olu’s victory and dismissing Jandor’s petition.
In a unanimous judgement read by Mikail Abdullahi on behalf of the three-person panel, the tribunal held that the PDP’s petition and its governorship candidate lacked merit.
Ruling on another issue bothering whether Sanwo-Olu and Hamzat had received legitimate nominations to run in the elections from their party, the APC, the tribunal said the matter was a pre-election matter unrelated to the conduct of the disputed polls.
On the matter of the allegedly forged certificate presented by Sanwo-Olu, the tribunal noted, among other things, that the petitioner, who testified in his petition that Sanwo-Olu did not attend the Community Grammar School, Ijebu-Ife, where the certificate originated from, and claimed the school’s principal was still alive, failed to bring the school’s principal or any other staff members to testify about the certificate.
The tribunal said the petition lacked merit and was dismissed accordingly.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Sanwo-Olu the winner of the governorship election.
Sanwo-Olu got 762,134 votes to beat Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the LP, who scored 312,329 votes, while Adediran came third with 62,449 votes.
A reporter with the ICIR
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