By Abdulwahab Abdulah

As the Court of Appeal, Ibadan reserved judgment in the appeal filed by Engr Rauf Aregbesola, the gubernatorial candidate of the Action Congress, AC in the 2007 governorship election against the victory of the incumbent, Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the appellate court was expected to unravel series of issues pleaded by the parties before the court.

This would follow what happened on Tuesday when the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin decided on the appeal filed by the DPP candidate, Chief Great Ogboru, where the election of the incumbent Governor, Chief Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State was nullified.

The panel of Justices presiding over the case was led by Justice Clara B. Ogunbiyi, supported by M. R. Garba, P. A. Galinje, C. C. Nwabueze, and A. Jaure.

Aregbesola in his arguments through his counsel, Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN has expressed confidence on the verdict to be delivered by the appellate court based on the glaring evidence of alleged fraud perpetrated by the  PDP, including manipulation of voting outcome across many local government areas of the state.

However, the PDP and Governor Oyinlola in their response to the appeal, through a team of lawyers led by Malam Yusuf Ali, SAN, argued that the appellants have not proven their case beyond reasonable doubt and that Aregbesola’s  loads of evidence cannot stand the scrutiny of law.

The former Attorney General of the Federation, AGF,  Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN,  who led the team that represented Aregbesola and his party, canvassed  that the appellate court iron out four issues in the main appeal, which will form basis of which the court should set aside the verdict of the Justice Alli Garba_led Election Petition Retrial Tribunal which dismissed the AC’s petition last May.

According to the appellants, governor Oyinlola was not duly elected by majority of lawful votes cast in the Osun State Governorship election held on April 14, 2007 and that his election is void.

Specifically, they complaint against the votes recorded and  returned in the following Local Government Areas, namely Atakumosa West, Ayedaade, Boluwaduro, Boripe, Ede North , Ife Central, Ifedayo, Isokan, Odo_Otin and Ola Oluwa local government areas, stating, it did not represent lawful votes cast in the  said governorship election. It added, “having been obtained in vitiating circumstances of substantial non-compliance with mandatory provisions of Electoral  Act, 2006, violence and malpractices which substantially affected the validity of the said elections that none of the candidates in the said elections can be validly returned as having validly won in the said affected Local Government Areas.”

He argued that Aregbesola was elected and ought to have been returned having scored the highest number of votes cast in line with Section 179 of the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act, 2006. He urged the Appeal Court to nullify the votes in all the 10 councils.

Olujimi made specific reference to Boripe local government, where the number of votes allotted to the PDP candidate were far much more than the total number of names available in the voters’ register there.

He maintained that exhibit 92, for instance,  revealed that while the total number of registered voters in Boripe was 12,631, the total number of votes recorded for Oyinlola alone was 14,497.

Besides the many discrepancies recorded, Olujimi submitted, the INEC could only produce electoral register for four wards, out of the 11 wards in the local government, “meaning that there are no register for the remaining 7 wards in the council.”

In another area,  Ife Central Local Government, the lawyer argued that one S.O Nafiu, the PDP agent, signed election results in nine out of 11 wards in the council, a clear indicator that the results in the areas were manipulated. Aregbesola’s  counsel told the court it would require a superhuman to do what Nafiu did, given the pressure of election.

Proving the alleged wrongs committed by the tribunal in its judgment, Olujimi said 75 different witnesses who served as Ward Supervisors were called to prove the allegations of non_counting of votes, non announcement of results by the INEC, and the INEC’s failure to produce the voter registers used for the ballot, as required in law guiding electioneering.

Olujinmi said contrary to the claim of the tribunal that the allegations are criminal in nature and should be proved beyond reasonable doubt, the allegations are civil. He said, “the contention that INEC officials did not collate and announce the result are already separable from the criminal ones”.

He cited the recent decided cases of Fayemi versus Oni and Agagu versus Mimiko to support his position, adding that the election tribunal failed in its duty, to consider several documents tendered by the petitioners.

Referring to the argument canvassed by Oyinlola on the point that Ward Supervisors, are not recognised in the INEC’s election manual, and cannot give credible reports on elections as held by the Court of Appeal  in Amosun vs Daniel, Olujimi replied that that position of law has been vacated by another authority in Lasun versus Awoyemi, wherein it was held that “the evidence of the supervisors were credible and reliable.”

Aregbesola contended that for instance,  in Odo-Otin local government, the 866 returned votes for his opponent could not have been genuine because it is not possible to return such in just a polling unit within a period of seven hours of voting time.  For that to happen, he argued,  each voter must have cast his ballot within a miraculous period of 48 seconds. He cited St Anthony Primary School, Okuku, in Odo Otin local government, where it was argued that the time for the votes cast by each voter was less than 1 minute. This scenario, according to the petitioner repeated itself in several other polling units in the council, according to the INEC certified document presented by Aregbesola.

Another clear evidence cited was that of the  Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Staff Quarters alone (a polling unit), 2,264 votes were recorded there for Oyinlola, whereas the school was not in session and students were away at the time the election took place. This pattern, according to the petitioners,  occurred almost in about 75 per cent of all the polling units across this local government.

In his petition, Aregbesola drew the attention of the court to another scenario in C&S Primary School in the Atakumosa local government area, where it was stated 630 valid votes were returned, meaning each of the voters concluded voting within an average of 67 seconds.

Apart from the above, Aregbesola also contended that the panel ought to take a cursory look at Exhibit 217 tendered by him and Exhibit R18 tendered by the respondents which he noted were either blank, unsigned or unstamped but were certified by INEC.

He cited a case, ‘Amgbare versus Silver’, to back up his claim. He recalled that this development was fatal to the case of the Respondents and qualified the election in the ten Local Governments to be nullified by the court to declare Aregbesola the Governor of Osun State.

On the strength of the above, Aregbesola was asking the Appeal Court to declare him the winner of the 2007 election, while invalidate the results, appropriating victory to Oyinlola.

In his response, Mallam Yusuf Ali,  SAN, the leading counsel to Governor Oyinlola and the PDP urged the appeal panel to dismiss the appeal and uphold the verdict of the lower tribunal. Ali argued that the issues canvassed by Olujinmi were not joined at the trial stage, adding that he could not be allowed to change the rule of the game at the appeal stage.

He submitted further that the issue of ‘severance’ which Olujinmi canvassed could not be applied in the case of Aregbesola “since a party could swim or sink with its case.”

Ali referred to paragraphs 18, 21, 22 and 27 of the petition and concluded that Aregbesola’s case was built around the commission of  crimes,  insisting that the case of Fayemi versus Oni earlier cited by Olujinmi was not helpful to the appellants.

“Everything taken together, the appellants have proved nothing. What the tribunal said was that the totality of the evidence called by the appellants have not proved anything.”