The Court of Appeal sitting in Ibadan on Wednesday adopted the briefs of Rashidi Ladoja and the Accord Party in an appeal filed before it by their counsel, Robert Clark (SAN) and Aderemi Olatubora.

Ladoja and Accord are challenging the judgment delivered on October 27, 2015 by the Election Petitions Tribunal headed by Justice Muhammed Maiyaki in Ibadan, which validated Ajimobi’s election as Oyo State governor.

On Wednesday, the panel, which was presided over by Justice H.M Ogunjimiju, gave counsel for each of the parties in the case 15 minutes to present their briefs. Ladoja’s counsel prayed the court to dismiss the judgment of the tribunal against his clients on the basis that the tribunal overlooked the evidence of the principal witness, Bimbo Adepoju, before giving the ruling.

He said the 129 evidences filed by the witness within five days were not objected to by the counsel for Ajimobi and the All Progressives Congress, wondering why the judge set them aside in his ruling. He said the evidences were vital to the petition and that the judge’s claim that the principal witness was not an expert was irrelevant, backing his claim with decided cases. He said the witness had a master’s degree in statistics and that contrary to the judge’s ruling, Adepoju was not a mere farmer.

Clark said, “The fundamental issue is the rejection of the evidence of PW1 which is the foundation of our case. Once you rejected the evidence which you admitted, it means you were not ready to look into the merit of the case.

“This is because the important thing is that he did not only give oral evidence, he submitted documentary evidence and we felt even if you say that there are contradictions in his evidence, the document speaks for itself and the tribunal should have looked into the document.”

Responding to Clark’s submission, Ajimobi’s counsel, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), said the evidences submitted by the said PW1 remained irrelevant because of the contradictions in them. Olanipekun prayed the court to dismiss Ladoja’s appeal and uphold the judgement of the tribunal which favoured his client.

Having listened to the submissions of all the parties, Justice Ogunjimiju told all the counsel in the case that the panel would take a decision and communicate the judgment date to them.

Source: Punch