The Election Petition Tribunal between Senator Rasheed Ladoja of Accord party and the incumbent governor; Senator Abiola Ajimobi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) made a headway with the continuation of the pre-hearing on July 28.
The Tribunal which last sat on July 23 was adjourned due to the late service of a process by the counsel of the petitioner.
Two applications had filed by the lead counsel of the petitioner; Pastor Richard Ogunwole (SAN). The first application, dated 2nd of July and filed on the 3rd enjoined that the preliminary objection filed by the respondents should be heard along with the substantive action.
The lead counsel of the first respondent, Mr. Wale Olanipekun (SAN) however maintained that the application was not competent. Among the reasons advanced before the Tribunal was that the motion had no author. Mr. Wale Olanipekun insisted that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to countenance the motion since the motion is predicated on nothing. In the bid to validate the reasons advanced before the Tribunal, Mr. Wale Olanipekun (SAN) representing Governor Abiola Ajimobi cited the case of Onward Enterprises vs. Olam (2010) and CPC vs. INEC (2011).
Mr Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), representing the second respondent; the All Progressives Congress took the permission of the Tribunal to adopt the argument of the first respondent. While elucidating on his own argument, Mr Akeredolu noted that the Tribunal did not consider the number of provisions or otherwise in the cases being referred to by the counsel of the petitioner.
The second application was dated 3rd July and filed on the 4th. The first and second respondents filed counter affidavits to this effect which also prompted the petitioner to file his own affidavits to the first and second respondents. The petitioner had initially obtained a leave from the court for the inspection of electoral materials and thus urged their Lordships to grant the application.
Mr Wale Olanipekun (SAN) however faulted the shoddiness of the process served by the petitioner, claiming that it was not presented by an identifiable counsel. He urged their Lordships to decline the jurisdiction, citing the cases of Williams vs. Tinubu (2006) and Eze vs. Okechukwu (2015) in which applications became defective once the person who signed the process cannot be ascertained.
Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) also faulted the petitioner for not filing a report of inspection along with a leave. He also told the Tribunal that the alleged evidence in the kitty of the petitioner was unfounded since their witness was merely a farmer, thus raising doubts about his expertise.
While responding on the points of law, Mr. Richard Ogunwole (SAN) told the Tribunal that paragraph 151 made no stipulation on the expertise of the person who carried out the inspection.
The counsels of the petitioners and respondents were urged to submit documents of all authorities which they cited in earnest so as to facilitate their Lordships to give ruling on the applications. A ruling is expected to be given on the first application on July 31 while a ruling would be given on the second application on August 1.
