The Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Osogbo, capital of Osun State, has upheld the electoral victory of the state governor, Rauf Aregbesola.

The tribunal on Friday dismissed the petition filed by the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Iyiola Omisore, seeking a nullification of the result of the August 9, 2014 polls.

Omisore had challenged the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC’s declaration of Aregbesola, who sought a second term under the umbrella of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as winner in the poll.

The tribunal ruled that the evidence provided by the witnesses called by the petitioner, was not compelling enough to support the claim of corrupt practices during the election.

The tribunal also held that claims that the election was conducted without substantial compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act were without substance.

In the ruling, the Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Elizabeth Ikpejime‎, stated:

“The testimonies of these witnesses are unsatisfactory and PDP forensic analyst did not prove that ballot papers were not used accordingly.”

“On allegations of over-voting, no single evidence of over voting was proved. Similarly, on the allegations that members of the state volunteer, O-YES, was used as INEC officials, there is no such evidence,” the tribunal ruled

The panel also struck out the petitioner’s claim that security operatives were compromised during the election as an unproven allegation whose effect only further damaged the substance of the petition.

INEC had returned Rauf Aregbesola as winner of the Osun State gubernatorial election which had fielded 20 aspirants. Aregbesola had 394,684 votes- the highest number of votes in 22 of the 30 local government Areas of the state, while Omisore polled 292,747 votes to come second winning in eight local government areas.