Oyo Election Tribunal receives 12 petitions

The Oyo State Elections’ Petitions Tribunal yesterday disclosed that it had received 12 petitions, made up of 10 House of Representatives and two senatorial seats.

At the State High Court, Iyaganku Ibadan, where both Courts 15 and 21 have been assigned to hear the petitions arising from both the National Assembly and Governorship/State Assembly elections, an official of the tribunal, who spoke with our reporter on condition of anonymity declined to give further details.

He however disclosed that the two senatorial petitions received were in respect of Oyo Central and Oyo South Senatorial Districts. He further disclosed that the 21-day period allowed for filling of petitions had lapsed with respect to the Presidential/National Assembly elections.

He said hearing of the petitions might not begin until next week when, “it is expected that all the necessary fillings would have been completed and those expected to be served would have received their papers”.

It was gathered that petitions in respect of both the governorship and State House of Assembly elections held on April 11 could still be entertained unlike the National Assembly election which was held on March28.

It would be recalled that the All Progressives Congress (APC) made a clean sweep of the National Assembly election in the state, winning 12 out of the 14 House of Representatives seats and all the three senatorial seats.

Equally, the party, aside winning the governorship election, which produced Abiola Ajimobi as the first governor to win a second term in the state, also won 18 seats in the State House of Assembly as against the eight won by Accord and six won by Labour Party (LP).

Former governor Rashidi Ladoja, who ran for the governorship election on the platform of Accord had however vowed to challenge the victory of Ajimobi at the tribunal, alleging that his mandate was stolen.

There were allegations that the victorious APC in the election had been sending emissaries to Ladoja to prevail on him not to challenge the election results at the tribunal, a proposal said to have been turned down by the Accord standard-bearer.

However, the APC in the state had denied ever making such move, challenging the opposition to go ahead with its litigation threat with a promise to meet it with facts and figures on how it won the elections fair and square in the state.