OSUN GOVERNORSHIP TRIBUNAL MAJORITY JUDGMENT: ONE JUDGMENT MANY QUESTIONS.
By Abioye Hashim , Esq
The Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal today rendered its verdict in a split decision of 2 to 1 in favour of the immediate past Governor of the State, Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola. My opinion in this piece is to show to the whole world that the Tribunal was wrong on all fronts in its majority decision. The long and short of the majority decision is tantamount to burying a twin sister for her co-twin sister from the same mother because of a dispute between them. It is a case of picking and choosing between two contradictory pieces of secondary evidence and preferring same over and above the primary source of evidence staringly placed before the Tribunal. Clearly, the petitioners erected their claim of over voting on a controversial BVAS report produced from the INEC server. There was another BVAS report from the INEC server which was later in time than the one the petitioners served as the pillar of their case. In defending the petition, Senator Ademola Adeleke applied to the Tribunal for an order to inspect the BVAS machines physically for the purpose of extracting data from the said BVAS machines in order to prove to the Tribunal that the claim of over-voting by the petitioners was phantom and baseless. The Tribunal granted the order and Adeleke produced the information extracted from the BVAS machines directly before the Tribunal. Aside this, the BVAS machines were physically put in evidence before the Tribunal. By the best evidence rule, where there are contradictory pieces of evidence seriously challenging each other, especially from a secondary source as in the case before the Tribunal, the court will reasonably recourse to the primary source which was unchallenged.
In the case of Oyetola's petition, his case was not based on the primary BVAS machines and the direct data from the physical BVAS machines but on a controversial secondary source, that is INEC back end server. The question begging for an answer is that can over-voting be proved without making use of any of the physical materials that were used at the polling units? Was INEC server part of the materials used for the declaration of the election at the polling units? Can a claim of over-voting be sustained without producing the voters register and/or the BVAS machines used for the election at the Tribunal? Has the Electoral Act, 2022, truly removed the use of voters register from the electoral process so as to make the use of same otiose, useless or unnecessary as postulated by the majority decison? Can it be correct that the report from INEC server is superior to the BVAS machines themselves which were the primary sources? Assuming without ever conceding that there was over-voting, by the provision of the law, where over-voting occurs and it is substantial as to affect the results of the election substantially, there can be no return in that election until a re-run is conducted. Where did the majority decision derive its authority to add and subtract results of an election so as to declare a winner when it had already held that there was substantial non-compliance? Many questions are begging for answers, and the battle has now shifted to the penultimate court to settle all that.
Aside these salient points, while I agree that Lawyers and judges have poetic licence to make use of, to any degree in the discharge of their duties, the deployment of same in a reckless, sentimental and biased manner as displayed by the Chairman of the Tribunal in the typed majority judgment was clearly an attack on the personality of Senator Ademola Adeleke and a mockery of his hobby which is not the business of a judge, and that surely was an indefensible expression of bias and descending to the arena. Instead of referring us to law books, legal authorities, and other legal materials, the Tribunal Chairman referred us in his judgment thus: " See BUGA, Kizz Daniel". The majority decision has set an abominable precedent by over ruling a Supreme Court decision which gives effect to the provision of the Evidence Act that payment is a condition precedent for issuance of a CTC of a public document. The Tribunal majority is telling us that a person can collect CTC of a public document today and come back later to pay at his convenience even if it is many years after.
In all, the minority decision was sound, it clearly exhibited the quality expected of an unbiased umpire by making use of the best evidence which was the direct data from the physical BVAS machines and the BVAS machines themselves (the primary source) which the majority decision itself acknowledged as duly demonstrated at the trial, instead of contradictory and controversial secondary sources which the majority decision unfortunately preferred.
The truth is that there was no over-voting anywhere. They played a game and the majority decision of theTribunal erroneously bought into it. At any rate, the pleasing development is that by law, Senator Ademola Adeleke remains the Governor with all rights, privileges and authorities until the Court of Appeal and ultimately the Supreme Court says otherwise. His Excellency Ademola Adeleke is a man of destiny. He has won many battles in the past. He shall win this one again. Osun PDP won the battle after 12 years. The victory of 16th July, 2022 shall not slip away. The Osun masses who are already breathing the fresh air of liberation and succour after many years in the Egypt of a tormenting Pharaoh will never go back to Egypt. The evil against which we in Osun have survived shall not resurface again.
Lastly, like the scriptural magicians arranged by Pharaoh whose staffs turned to big and swift moving snakes in order to scare away the Moses' Israelites and to surrender them to perpetual servitude, the supreme power of God overtook Moses' staff and swallowed all of the snakes. So shall it be for us in Osun. We shall remain victorious. The devils of yesteryears will never resurface on the shores of Osun State. That BUGA song by Kizz Daniel, Adeleke, PDP and Osun masses shall surely sing in no distant time.
Hashim Abioye Esq.

The game of who controls the Commonwealth of the people continues. That is all u see and nothing more

Minority Judgement Vs Controversial Majority Judgement. Appeal Court should get ready....