Osun State Elections Petition Tribunal

Osun State Elections Petition Tribunal: What Transpired PDF | Print | E-mail
Monday, 31 May 2010 23:01
Some revelations have emerged about the corrupt secret deals that produced the bizarre majority ruling by the Osun State governorship petitions tribunal awarding the election to the incumbent PDP governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola. Last Friday, May 28, a four-judge majority of the tribunal made up of Justices Abimbola Ogie, Garba Ali, Aliu Mohammed, Haruna Bashir, and Agabtan Benedict, affirmed Oyinlola as the winner of the disputed April 21, 2007 election and dismissed the challenge Rafiu Aregbesola, the Action Congress candidate, to the 2007 election outcome. A judicial source disclosed to Saharareporters today that Abimbola Ogie, one of the four judges who reportedly endorsed the unanimous verdict, did not in fact append her signature to the judgment. “This is a highly unusual and curious development,” said the source.

A senior advocate of Nigeria who analyzed the majority decision insisted that the judges failed to address the substantive issues that the Appeal Court had ordered the tribunal to examine.

Another judicial source told Saharareporterporters, “It was obvious that parts of the judgment were altered at the last minute as the tribunal chairman was visibly ill at ease with some of the words and sentences he read while delivering the judgment,” adding, “the judge even used his pen to change some words or cancel others as he read the judgment in open court.”

A high-ranking PDP official told us that, 48 hours before the judgment was delivered, Mr. Oyinlola and his inner circle were still expecting the worst. In fact, the source revealed that, before Oyinlola and the PDP were able to influence the judgment, they were making plans to unleash PDP hoodlums to cause widespread arson and killings targeted at AC members in order to create the impression of “public displeasure” with a judgment that favored Aregbesola. Oyinlola was said to be so uneasy that he contacted former President Olusegun Obasanjo about help in finding a sympathetic panel of justices to hear his appeal in the event that he lost at the tribunal.