The Court of Appeal sitting in Akure has dismissed the appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party’s governorship candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore, in the August 9 2014 governorship election in Osun State.
Given the ruling on the appeal, the court also upheld the cross appeal by Governor Rauf Aregbesola of the All Progressives Congress that Omisore’s petition ought to have been dismissed as an abandoned petition in the first instance by the State Election Petition Tribunal before hearing by the Justice Elizabeth Ikpejime led tribunal panel.
The Appeal Court presided by Hon. Justice A G Mshelia in an unanimous decision delivered Thursday dismissed Omisore’s appeal for incompetence, stressing that the ground for the appeal does not arise from the judgment of the tribunal.
In determining the appeal, the court adopted the seven issues formulated by the appellants, Omisore and the PDP.
But 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 complaint of the appellant (Omisore and PDP) on ground 13 of appeal is that the tribunal failed to act on admission made by Aregbesola’s counsel in a chart contained in their written address before the lower tribunal.
The Court of Appeal in holding that the ground of appeal is incompetent held that the ground does not arise from the judgment of the tribunal.
The Court of Appeal 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 of Appeal held that ground 13 is incompetent and consequently struck it out together with issue 5 formulated from the ground.
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