Election Tribunal: Nomination of Sanwo-Olu, Rhodes-Vivour unlawful, says Jandor

Governorship Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Abdul-Azeez Adediran (Jandor), yesterday, at the election tribunal, stated that the process of nomination that led to the sponsorship of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of All Progressives Congress (APC) and Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of Labour Party (LP) as candidates is unlawful.

Jandor, who spoke while appearing as the star witness of PDP and his candidacy during the witness statements and cross examination at Lagos High Court, Ikeja, maintained that the March 18 governorship election hasn’t come to an end until pronouncement of the Supreme Court.

He stated that before a political party can validly sponsor a candidate, it must adhere to some sections of the Electoral Act, especially sections 29, 82 and 84.

“Section 82 stated that before a political party can organise any primary, it has to give 21 days notice to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Section 82 (5) of that same section says that any party that actually goes contrary to that section would have its primary election invalidated.

“We also have section 84, which says that before a candidate can be validly sponsored, the political party must conduct an election at a venue, which will be communicated to INEC by the National Executive Committee of the party.

“But in the case of Lagos State, we had the state chairman of APC, who communicated the date and venue of the primary to the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC).

“There is already a prima facie on this one. We have Sadiq vs. PDP, in the Supreme Court, which clearly stated that the chapter of a political party couldn’t organise a primary election. So, in this situation, that is one of the grounds we are challenging the sponsorship of Sanwo-Olu as candidate of the party.”

In the case Rhodes-Vivour, the PDP candidate said he deposed an affidavit that he joined LP on June 18, 2022, and on June 19, 2022, he wrote to be his deputy in PDP, and in June 22, 2022, he wrote to PDP’s National Secretariat to be part of the party’s screening for intending deputy governorship candidates.

“In LP’s case, what we are putting before the courts is that before you can be validly sponsored by a political party, you have to be a member of that party, and not of two parties.” Jandor also criticised INEC for defending APC at the court, saying that the party’s petition has nothing against them.

“We are so shocked because our petition has nothing against INEC. We are not disputing the conduct of the March 18 election. Of course, we know, to some extent, that there were violence and things like that; but in this case, INEC is just a statutory respondents that has to be joined so that when the court order comes it will be binding on it to withdraw the certificate of return given to somebody unlawfully and be given to the lawfully elected governor.”