The Governorship, National, and State Houses of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal in Lagos State has confirmed the receipt of a total of 48 petitions in respect of the 2023 elections held on the 25th of February and the 11th of March.
A news correspondent who visited the secretariat of the tribunal at Court 6, of the Rosaline Omotoso Courthouse sitting in the Ikeja area made this discovery.
A breakdown of the petitions as obtained from the Secretariat shows that 4 petitions were filed to challenge the governorship elections held in the state on March 11, 2023.
Those who filed are the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) and its candidate, Abdul-Azeez Adediran; as well as the Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour who filed as the sole petitioner.
Others are the Allied People’s Movement (APM) and the Action People’s Party (APP).
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The Tribunal also received five Petitions from five Senatorial candidates and 26 Petitions from House of Representatives candidates that lost during the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections while a total of 13 petitions were filed to challenge the elections into the State House of Assembly.
For the Governorship elections, the candidate of LP, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, listed three grounds on which his petition is based. He alleged that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was at the time of election, not qualified to contest the election.
He also stated that the election of Sanwo-Olu was invalid by reason of corrupt practices or non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and the Constitution.
The third ground was to the effect that Sanwo-Olu was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the election.
He asked the tribunal to nullify Sanwo-Olu’s return and declare him the winner of the elections.
In the petition filed by Abdul-Azeez Adediran and his party the PDP, the petitioners listed two grounds of appeal to the effect that the Governor of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat were at the time of election not qualified to contest.
Adediran also stated that the governorship candidate of the Labour Party, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour who was declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as having scored the second highest number of votes was, at the time of the election, also not qualified to contest.
While INEC is the first respondent, Babajide Sanwo-Olu; Obafemi Hamzat, APC; Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, and the LP are listed as the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th respondent respectively.
The PDP governorship candidate said he is calling for the disqualification of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Labour Party (LP) candidates in the election for ‘non-compliance’ with the Electoral Act 2022 as well as the guidelines of INEC.
Adediran also asked that all votes cast for them in the election be declared wasted.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Sanwo-Olu polled 762,134 votes to defeat Rhodes-Vivour, his closest rival who scored 312,329 votes while Adediran who came third garnered 62,449 votes in the poll.
For the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and Action People’s Party (APP) who also filed petitions to challenge Sanwo-Olu’s victory, both parties did not include their candidates, the only female governorship candidates in the race, Funmilayo Kupoluyi and Abiola Adeyemi, in their petitions.
Both parties argued in their separate petitions that Sanwo-Olu and his deputy were not qualified to contest the election and that INEC failed to comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act and the 1999 Constitution.