Tag: Omisore

The Supreme Court yesterday fixed May 27 for judgment in the appeal by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the August 9 governorship election in Osun State, Iyiola Omisore.

Omisore is challenging the April 2 decision of the Court of Appeal, affirming the judgment of the Governorship Election Tribunal, which upheld the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Governor Rauf Aregbesola.

Yesterday, parties made their final arguments and adopted their processes, following which the court adjourned till May 27 for judgment.

Omisore, dressed in white native attire, witnessed the proceedings that lasted about three hours.

Alex Iziyon, who led five others for the appellant, urged the court to set aside the concurrent judgments of the two lower courts (the tribunal and Court of Appeal) and allow the two appeals filed against the Court of Appeal’s decisions on the main appeal and the cross-appeal.

Iziyon argued that both the tribunal and the Court of Appeal identified irregularities in the election but refused to make the proper findings concerning them.

Former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Akin Olujinmi, who led Kola Awodein for Aregbesola, urged the court to dismiss the appeals, but to uphold the cross appeal he filed.

He argued that there was nothing on which the appeals by Omisore could be assessed because all the evidence he led at the tribunal punctured and his witnesses thoroughly discredited.

He argued that the appellant failed, before the tribunal to discharge the onus of proving its case beyond reasonable doubt as required.

Olujinmi, who also raised objection to appeals, urged the court to dismiss them on the ground that the appellant changed the name of a party to the case, APC to All Peoples Progressives Party, without the leave of the court.

“This is a case in which the appellants called 43 witnesses and only seven were party agents. The rest were called supervisors. The PW15 and PW35 which they called experts said ‘we derived our evidence from what our agents told us’.

“The evidence is clearly hearsay and there was no way the tribunal could have made any use of it other than to treat as a mere hearsay. The seven party agents called were discredited. PW1 who was their star witness, said he was told what he told there court.

“The so called experts admitted that their reports were false. My lordship, there is no evidence to rely on in order to sustain the petition. My question is that is there any element of evidence to rely on to get this court allow these appeals? My answer is none,” Olujinmi said.

APC’s lawyer Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, who argued in similar vein, contended that the judgment of the courts below could not be faulted as the Court of Appeal held in its judgment that the reports of the appellant’s purported expert witnesses could not pass as expert report.

“In rejecting their reports, the Court of Appeal held that there was no expertise and that any literate person could make the deduction. They were not experts. There is no technical or scientific deduction in the reports. The findings of the court below cannot be faulted.

“No portion of the judgment where the court agreed that there were irregularities. There is no such finding on record at the tribunal or at the court of appeal, “he said.

Lawyer to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Adegboyega Awomolo also urged the court to dismiss the appeals and uphold the findings of the tribunal and lower court.

The Court of Appeal sitting in Akure, the Ondo State capital, yesterday dismissed the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in the August 9 election in Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore.

Omisore approached the Appeal Court to challenge the ruling of the Osun State Elections Petition Tribunal delivered on February 6, which upheld the victory of Governor Rauf Aregbesola of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Justice Gana Mcshella, who delivered judgment on behalf of four other judges, declared that Omisore’s appeal lacked merit.

The court also upheld the cross appeal by Governor Aregbesola that Omisore’s petition ought to have been dismissed as an abandoned petition by the tribunal.

Justice Mcshella dismissed Omisore’s appeal for incompetence, stressing that the grounds for appeal did not arise from the tribunal’s judgment.

In determining the appeal, the court adopted the seven issues formulated by the appellants, Omisore and the PDP.

At the hearing, lead counsel to Senator Omisore, Alex Iziyon (SAN) argued that the tribunal erred, as it failed to examine all the allegations and issues raised by the petitioner.

He argued that the tribunal failed to address the allegations of corruption and non-compliance with the Electoral Act in the election producing Governor Aregbesola.  The counsel urged the Appeal Court to discountenance the judgment of the tribunal.

But counsel to Aregbesola and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Akin Olujimi (SAN) and Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) objected to the grounds of the appeal, arguing that the tribunal was clear and unbiased in its ruling.

Olujimi said the ruling of the tribunal upholding the governor’s victory was unchallengeable as it was decided after a thorough investigation.

Before considering the main appeal, the court upheld the preliminary objections by Aregbesola and APC’s counsel challenging ground 13 of the Notice of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal in holding that the ground of appeal is incompetent, held that it did not arise from the judgment of the tribunal.

It also held that the decision of the tribunal was that Aregbesola’s counsel did not make any admission, therefore, having failed to appeal this specific decision of the tribunal, the court held that ground 13 was incompetent and consequently struck it out together with issue 5 formulated from the ground.

On the remaining issues for determination, the court resolved all issues against Omisore and PDP.

On issue 1, the court held that the tribunal did not depart from the procedure on standard of proof for civil and criminal allegations and that the tribunal, having evaluated the evidence called by the appellants, applied the required standard of proof in respect of allegations of non- compliance on one hand and corruption on the other hand.

In resolving issue 2 against the appellants, the court upheld the decision of the tribunal that the appellants had not established their case to “any degree or magnitude”.

On the complaint in issue 3 by the appellants that the judgment was against the weight of evidence, it held that the complaint was of no moment. According to the court, the judgment of the tribunal was supported by both oral and documentary evidence on record.

Issue 4 considered by the Court of Appeal relates to the complaint of the appellants that the tribunal did not properly evaluate the evidence of PW 15 and PW 38, who were called as experts by the Appellants.

The court also resolved this issue against the appellant as it upheld the decision of the tribunal that by the nature of evidence given by PW15 and PW38, their evidence could not be said to be expert evidence.

Issue 5 had earlier been struck out because ground 13 upon which it was predicated had been struck out for being incompetent.

The court also resolved issue 6 against the appellants when it held that the replies filed by the appellants to the respondent’s reply at the tribunal were filed out of time.

The final issue formulated by the appellant was issue 7 and this was also resolved against the appellants as the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the tribunal that the appellants failed to prove allegations of corruption and non-compliance.

The court also upheld the cross appeal filed by Aregbesola when it dismissed PDP’s and Omisore’s petition as having been abandoned for failure to comply with the requirement of filing pre-hearing notice within the stipulated time under paragraph 18 of the 1st Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2010 as amended.

The Court held that the tribunal was wrong to have saved the petition relying on paragraph 53(1) of the 1st Schedule to the Electoral Act because Paragraph 53(1) only applies where the 1st Schedule to the Electoral Act did not provide for the consequences of non-compliance with the rules.

APC: Omisore’s defeat irreversible

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State has said yesterday’s Court of Appeal’s dismissal of the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore, has confirmed that the people did not want him.
In a statement by its Directorate of Publicity and Research, the APC contended that “for as long as Omisore persisted in cohesive politics and would not desist from objectionable disregard for truth, he will be unelectable”.
“Also, for as long as the PDP remains under his leadership, that party will never again be voted to power in Osun.
“The truth of the matter is that Omisore has a crisis and no reasonable community or state will risk its future on such a personality.”

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore, yesterday closed the prosecution of their petition against the re-election of Governor Rauf Aregbesola in the August 9 election.

Aregbesola, the first respondent, will open his defence on Monday.

The petitioners’ counsel, Nathaniel Oke, at the close of sitting on Wednesday, applied to close the case of his clients.

The petitioners closed their cases before the Justice Elizabeth Ikpejime tribunal after calling 43 witnesses, two of whom were claimed to be expert witnesses within 14 days.

They also tendered 388 exhibits, including ballot papers, results forms and voter register, among others, to prove the case. Oke thanked the tribunal and the respondents for their cooperation.

Aregbesola’s counsel Femi Falana promised to open defence on behalf of his client early next week.

Each respondent- Aregbesola, APC and INEC- has 10 days each to defend the case.

Pius Bakare, the expert witness of the Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore, admitted yesterday before the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal that he went beyond the mandate given to him by his client.

Led in evidence by the respondent’s counsel, the witness said he analysed   1,842 polling units instead of only 912 units in the 17 local government being challenged by the petitioner.

Omisore and the PDP are challenging the August 9 re-election of Governor Rauf Aregbesola and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is joined as a party in the matter.

At the resumed hearing, Bakare, who claimed to be an Information Technology expert, digital forensic expert and document forensic expert, was cross-examined by Aregbesola’s counsel Akin Olujinmi; APC’s counsel Prof Yemi Osinbajo and  INEC’s counsel Ayotunde Ogunleye.

The witness, who had stated in his deposition that his analysis covered only the polling units being challenged, said: “I read the petition and the reply and ascertain that the petitioners are challenging only 912 polling units, but I based my inspection and analysis on 1,842 units.

“I agree that I have gone beyond the mandate given to me by the petitioners who gave me this job to do. The extension cannot affect my report.”

When he was being cross-examined by Osinbajo, the witness, who recorded 222 as total votes cast for Ward 2, Unit 5 Atakumosa East Local Government in his report, was confronted with the Certified True Copies (CTC) of the result form for the unit and he confirmed that the votes cast there were 223, admitting that his record was false.

For Ward 2, Unit 4 of Ilesa East Local Government, the witness was also confronted with the result form for the unit and he confirmed that the votes were 202, as against the 200 he recorded in his report. He, again, admitted that his entry was wrong.

He was also confronted with the result form for Ward 10, Unit 6 of Ilesa East and he confirmed that the total votes were 257, as against the 256 in his report.

Bakare conceded again that his entries were faulty.

Confirming that at table two of his report, the spaces for total votes cast for units 21, 22 and 23 of Ward 11, Irewole Local Government were blank, he admitted that his conclusion that that there were differences in the votes recorded would not be correct.

He told the tribunal that there was nowhere in his reports where the serial numbers of the ballot papers he inspected were listed.

Osinbajo who hinted that there were over 200 false entries in the report of the “expert”, said the discrepancies would be taken up at the final address stage.

Also being cross-examined by INEC’s counsel, the witness testified that he did not carry out any fingerprint inspection on the ballot papers to determine multiple voting, neither did he make any report on it.

He said there was no reflection of the total used ballot papers in his report.

Asked to confirm that a source of data must be the same with the data being processed to get accurate result, the witness answered in the affirmative.

He was then confronted with the CTC of the result form for Ward 5, Unit 9 of Olorunda Local Government which has 409 votes cast, as against the entry in his report that the votes cast were 407, admitting again that his entry was faulty.

The INEC counsel then noted that there were over 400 false entries in the report and they would be taken up at the final address stage.

Also, Omisore’s counsel Nathaniel Oke admitted that he misinformed the tribunal on the inspection of some election materials.

Oke said the respondents’ team could not complete the inspection because there was power failure.

But Olujinmi queried Oke for misinforming the tribunal, saying the inspection was concluded.

He said: “My lord, I am taken aback by the false information my learned friend is giving to the court.

“I gave my words that we would complete the inspection, and when the light was off, we had to use the phone torchlights to complete the work.

“He should have confided in me to know the true position, rather than giving wrong information. We stayed behind to ensure that the inspection was concluded.”

The petitioners’ counsel, who admitted giving wrong information to the tribunal, apologised for the act, saying he was misinformed by his team.

He thanked the respondents’ legal team for their cooperation in the inspection of the documents.

The Tribunal Chairman, Justice Elizabeth Ikpejime, who also praised the respondents’ counsel for their cooperation and proactiveness, conceded that Omisore’s counsel should have confirmed the true position before giving wrong information.

MR. Adesina Teniola Akangbe, a witness of the Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate in the August 9 election in Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore, yesterday turned himself into a laughing stock at the election petition tribunal.

He displayed lack of understanding of his witness statement while giving evidence before the tribunal chairman, Justice Elizabeth Ikpejime.

Members of the tribunal as well as lawyers for the petitioners and respondents could not hold their emotion when the witness said the meaning of ‘mutilation’ as stated in his witness statement was “forcing someone to do something”. His explanation made the counsel to burst into laughter. Under cross-examination, the Independent National Electoral Commission’s counsel asked the witness: “What do you mean by mutilation as stated in your deposition?” The witness responded: “Forcing someone to do something.”

Jokingly, Justice Ikpejime while still laughing asked the lawyers to “add the statement of the witness to their dictionary.”