The Lagos State Governorship Election Tribunal has dismissed the petition of the 2023 governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, against Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Adediran and his party, the PDP, had filed a petition challenging the outcome of the March 18 governorship election in the state, in which Sanwo-Olu of APC was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The PDP candidate had demanded the disqualification of Sanwo-Olu and Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party (LP) in the election for “non-compliance” with the Electoral Act 2022 as well as the guidelines of INEC.
Adediran and his party stated that Sanwo-Olu failed to include a copy of the GCE O’Level result he claimed to have sat for in 1981 together with his form EC9 as required by the Electoral Act 2022.
The petitioner also adduced reasons for the disqualification of the APC governorship running mate, Obafemi Hamzat.
Listed as first respondent is the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), while Sanwo-Olu, Hamzat, APC, Rhodes-Vivour and LP are listed as 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th respondents, respectively.
In the petition marked EPT/LAG/GOV/01/2023 and dated April 7, the petitioner argued that as at the time of the election, the 2nd, 3rd and 5th respondents were not qualified to stand as candidates and should therefore be disqualified.
But delivering judgement on Monday, the Tribunal ruled that the issue of non-compliance” as argued by the petitioner on the nomination of the 2nd respondent is a pre-election matter.
The Justice Arum Ashom-led paned also ruled that only a member of a political party who participated in a primary election can contest the nomination process.
The Tribunal stuck out the 5th respondent, Rhodes-Vivour and his party (6th respondent) from the petition, stating that the respondent should not have been included since the 5th respondent is not the winner of the said governorship election.
INEC had declared Sanwo-Olu the winner of the governorship election after polling 762,134 votes to defeat Rhodes-Vivour who gathered 312,329 votes, while Adediran came a distant third with 62,449 votes.
