A former Governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi on Friday lost his appeal against the Senator representing Oyo South Senatorial district, Senator Kola Balogun in February 23, 2019 National Assembly election.
The Federal Appeal Court sitting in Ibadan affirmed the decision of the National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal which threw out the petition of Senator Abiola Ajimobi against the victory of Senator Dr. Kola Balogun.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) and Ajimobi had approached the Appeal Court asking that the victory of Balogun of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) be quashed on grounds including non-qualification for the election and that the election results declared by the electoral body was invalid.
The INEC had declared that PDP candidate scored 105,720 votes to defeat the APC candidate who garnered 92,217 votes.
The appellants led by Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN) had claimed that the election tribunal did not properly evaluate the evidence brought before it before delivering judgment in the petition. The respondents led by Mr Olalekan Ojo (SAN) however claimed that the tribunal through due diligence examined all evidence tendered before it.
Justice Haruna Samani who delivered the unanimous judgment on behalf of the two other Justices (Okoronkwo and Ojo) who were not present, said that going by section 138 (1) (a), once the INEC has decided that a candidate has been validly nominated by the party, the issue of non-qualification would not arise.
“The issue cannot be raised now. It is certainly settled that the ground for disqualification for nomination is a matter for the Constitution. Anyone who is not an interested party will be considered an interloper. Once a candidate is nominated by a party, he cannot be disqualified by any other party”, stressing that the appellant ought to have challenged the non-qualification of the respondent at the High Court.
On the issue of the tribunal not given any probative value to the evidence of the appellant’s witnesses as canvassed by the petitioners, the Appeal Court Justice found that all the witnesses presented were not qualified to testify at the tribunal. They were not polling agents but only collation agents. They did not have any credible evidence before the tribunal and that was why their case failed.
“The appellants failed to adduce reasons why the collation agents could not give evidence before the tribunal. All the oral evidence given by the witnesses were rightly discountenanced by the tribunal, I do hold”.
In the 33 minutes judgment, Justice Samani eventually said that, “This appeal has no merit and so it is hereby dismissed. The judgment of the National Assembly Election Tribunal is hereby affirmed”, he submitted.
