The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, against the decision of the Court of Appeal.
The appeal court had earlier ruled against the election tribunal in Oyo which dismissed a petition by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Adebayo Adelabu.
The appeal court in a majority decision said the tribunal was wrong to have dismissed the PDP’s petition. It, however, refused to sack Mr Makinde as Oyo governor. A minority member of the appeal court however ruled in favour of Mr Makinde.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upturned that majority decision of the appeal court.
The apex court said the appeal court’s majority judgement setting aside the ruling of the tribunal was not meritorious and deserved to be set aside.
The court further ruled that the minority decision of the Court of Appeal was more deserving of the apex court’s consideration and upheld the minority decision of the court of appeal which validated Mr Makinde’s election.
Earlier, Mr Makinde’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, asked the court to disregard the appeal by Mr Adelabu.
Mr Olanipekun said his team of lawyers identified that majority of the decisions taken at the tribunal had been based on previous positions of the Supreme Court which were not upturned by the court of appeal.
Mr Olanipekun also argued that his client had defeated his opponents in the polls with over 15700 polls and won in 28 out of 33 Local governments in the state.
