Governorship: INEC can’t defend APC’s victory in Osun

It was a political earthquake today in Abuja as the Independent National Electoral Commission closed its submission before the Osun Election Petition Tribunal without calling a single witness and with a clearly disturbed countenance.
At the resumed hearing today in Abuja, the commission throughout its counsel Adesina Agbede rose in disquiet to apply to close his case to the other consternation of even APC and Gboyega Oyetola’s legal team.
The counsel had staked his reputation yesterday when he promised the tribunal that the witnesses would testify at today’s proceedings. The Tribunal Chairman quickly come to the aid of the disturbed counsel by ruling that he needs not apply to close INEC defence, urging him to proceed to close his case.
The INEC counsel eventually closed the case without canvassing any arguments against them presentations, submissions and prayers of the petitioner that Ademola Adeleke be declared the rightful winner of the election based on the results of September 22nd.
*The Real Gist*
Checks however showed that INEC stopped further presentations due to inability to assemble the right witnesses. It was learnt that very few were ready to come and tesify in defence of the violently manipulated rerun on the basis of which Oyetola was declared winner.
Two, the few who were ready could not be tutored to say white is black especially with respect to the alteration of results sheets.
Three, INEC discovered that PDP cross-examination will only strengthen petitioner’s case that the rerun was a sham and that cancellation of some polling units in September 22 was an exercise outside and against the spirit of the law.
“Most witnesses they would have called will eventually be confirming the disparity between the so called certified true copies of the results and the pink copies with PDP agents. INEC witnesses would have ended up as petitioners’ supporters”, a public interest lawyer who was in court said.
Eventually the few witnesses who were mobilised for INEC were not utilised as the counsel felt that they would further weaken the case of the defendants and strengthen the petitioner’s position that INEC exercised powers it does not have by cancelling the seven polling units and by declaring the election inconclusively.
*INEC has Conceeded to our Petition– PDP Lawyer*
Speaking on the implication of INEC decision, lead counsel for the petitioner, Dr. Paul Ananaba, SAN, said INEC has literally endorsed and conceeded to the PDP petition seeking declaration of Senator Adeleke as the winner of the election.
According to the legal luminary, our case is primarily against the actions and decisions of INEC and if they cannot challenge our Petition, and if they can not provide any defence for their actions that declared Oyetola as winner, then the commission has literally admitted that our petition is right and correct before the law and God.
“A key pillar of our case is that the returning officer without legal powers cancelled results of seven polling units and proceeded to declare the election inconclusive. INEC failed to declare PDP and her candidate winner even after fulfilling all constitutional stipulations. We also complained that INEC altered result sheets and that the commission published results where there was no accreditation and ballots accounting.
“We called 80 witnesses to authenticate our pleadings and prayers and also tendered over 500 pieces of evidence. By closing its case without any defence, INEC is saying we cannot challenge petitoner’s case. INEC has accepted that We are right in our prayers that the rightful winner of the election is PDP’S Ademola Adeleke.
“INEC is the one that committed the infractions and it has literally accepted our pleadings and prayers. We will be surprised if APC and her candidate will challenge our petition in the light of INEC’s action today. The honourable thing for APC to do is to throw in the towel and avoid wasting the time of the court”, the senior lawyer said.
The tribunal adjourned further sitting till Wednesday January 30