Appeal Court throws out vote-buying allegation against Abiodun,

Ogun state governor, Dapo Abiodun. Photo/facebook/dabiodunmfr

A special panel of the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, yesterday, affirmed the decision of the Ogun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which had earlier struck out all allegations of vote-buying and voter-inducement that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its gubernatorial candidate, Ladi Adebutu, made against Governor Dapo Abiodun and All Progressives Congress (APC).

The court, in its lead judgment read by Justice M.B. Idris, also upheld another decision of the tribunal, which confirmed the validity of the defence filed by Abiodun.

It confirmed that all allegations of vote-buying in Adebutu’s reply were incompetent and as such, the Court of Appeal struck out paragraphs 21, 22, 23, 24, 31, 32, 33, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 of the reply, leaving some few hollow paragraphs.

In the same vein, the court threw out the entire appeal filed by Adebutu and PDP against the decision of the tribunal, which upheld the validity of Abiodun’s defence.

Earlier in his defence, Abiodun had made a strong allegation of electoral fraud against the PDP and its candidate, Adebutu, which was perpetrated during the March 18, 2023 governorship election in the state.

Adebutu’s lawyers, rather than counter the weighty allegations, belatedly introduced their own counter-allegations of vote-buying (all of which have now been struck out) while also asking the tribunal to strike out the governor’s allegations of vote-buying.

Adebutu and PDP had argued that their petitions did not include allegations of vote-buying and so the governor’s defence should not also have included such allegations.

However, in its ruling, the tribunal unanimously held that Abiodun was not restricted to the same issues that Adebutu and PDP raised in their petition and that the governor was free to allege and prove acts of vote-buying against PDP and its candidate.

The Court of Appeal unanimously upheld that decision. It also described the appeal filed by Adebutu as unmeritorious and struck out the appeal in its entirety.

With these decisions, it is now clear that the afterthought allegations of vote-buying made by PDP have been thrown out and all evidence they purportedly brought before the tribunal will be useless having been confirmed by the Court of Appeal to be based on incompetent claims. On the other hand, the allegations of vote-buying by Abiodun against the PDP and Adebutu remain competent before the tribunal whose decision will be rendered in due course.