Tribunal dismisses AD’s, LP’s election petitions against Sanwo-Olu

• Gov, security agencies move to tackle insecurity in Lagos
The Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Ikeja, Lagos State, yesterday dismissed a petition filed by the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the Labour Party (LP) challenging the victory of Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu at the March 9, 2019 polls.

Chairman of the tribunal, Justice T. T Asua, in a ruling dismissed the petitions due to inability of the petitioners to file applications for pre-hearing conferences after the close of pleadings within seven days as prescribed by law.

The three-man panel noted that timely application for pre-hearing conference was a condition to the hearing of the petitions and without the application for pre-hearing conferences, the petition cannot commence or get to the stage of judgment. In a statement, the panel noted that Section 285 (4) of the Fourth Alteration to the 1999 Constitution was inapplicable because the timely application for pre-hearing conferences was a precondition in election petition matters.

Dismissing the petitions, Justice Asua said that inability to serve any of the respondents was not an excuse and that the consequence of failure to apply timely for pre-hearing conference is dismissal of such a petition.

Meanwhile, Sanwo-Olu and heads of security agencies in Lagos have drawn new strategies and approaches to ensure safety and security of lives and property in the state.The governor stated this yesterday after the state government’s monthly security meeting where representatives of the police, Army, Navy and Air Force were in attendance.

He said he got the commitment of all the heads of security agencies to double their works.”At the meeting, we set new level of challenge for ourselves. All the formations have been well informed that keeping Lagos safe and secured is a daily responsibility and everyone’s responsibility.

“We have all taken up the challenge and we will encourage all the men that will be involved and we can assure Lagosians that they will begin to see a new lease of security in the state.

“I want to assure residents of Lagos that during the meeting, issues on cultism, kidnapping, armed robbery, pipeline vandalism and indiscriminate driving against traffic, Okada riders were discussed. And other issues that could improve the level of security in the state were not left out,” he further said.