Osun guber: Supreme Court upholds Aregbesola's victory

A seven-member panel of the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, yesterday upheld the electoral victory of Governor Rauf Aregbesola in the August 9, 2014 gubernatorial election in Osun State.

The apex court entered the verdict yesterday after dismissing two separate appeals filed by candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Iyiola Omisore, and his party, PDP.

The court held that the appeals were unmeritorious, unnecessary and an overkill, saying Omisore and his party ought not to have brought them to the apex court.

The court, however, upheld the cross-appeal filed by Governor Aregbesola to the effect that the appeal filed by Omisore was in itself incompetent since it was not filed within seven days after the election results were announced.

Justice Chima Centus Nweze, an academic and jurist, delivered the lead judgment of the court yesterday.

He addressed all the seven issues distilled from the appeal by Omisore in a 71-page judgment, resolving only one of the issues in favour of Omisore, while the remaining six were resolved in Aregbesola's favour.

According to him, 'Although issue one was resolved in favour of Omisore, that did not alter the substance of the concurrent judgment of the tribunal and the Akure division of the Court of Appeal as there is no merit in issues two, three, four, five, six and seven of the appeal.'

All other justices of the court took turns to agree with the judgment even as they held that the appeal was a waste of the court's time and that such case ought not to have been brought before them.