In relation to the 2023 elections held on February 25 and March 11, the Lagos State Governorship, National, and State Houses of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal has received a total of 48 petitions.
The secretariat of the tribunal was visited by Shola Soyele, the judiciary correspondent for Channels Television, at Court 6 of the Rosaline Omotoso Courthouse, which is located in the Ikeja district.
A breakdown of the petitions acquired from the Secretariat reveals that 4 petitions were submitted to contest the state’s March 11, 2023, governorship elections.
Both the Labour Party (LP) and its candidate for governor, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, as well as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Abdul-Azeez Adediran, filed petitions.
Others include the Action People’s Party (APP) and the Allied People’s Movement (APM) (APP).
While a total of 13 petitions were filed to challenge the elections into the State House of Assembly, the Tribunal also received five petitions from five senatorial candidates and 26 petitions from House of Representatives candidates who lost during the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections.
Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, a candidate for the LP in the governorship elections, gave three reasons for his appeal. He claimed that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was ineligible to run for office at the time of the election.
Additionally, he claimed that Sanwo-election Olu’s was unconstitutional due to fraud or other violations of the Election Act of 2022 and the Constitution.
Sanwo-Olu was not legitimately elected by a majority of the valid votes cast in the election, according to the third ground.
He requested that the tribunal pronounce him the election’s victor and invalidate Sanwo-return. Olu’s
According to two grounds of appeal cited in the case submitted by Abdul-Azeez Adediran and his political party, the PDP, the governor of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, were ineligible to run for office at the time of the election.
Adediran added that the Labour Party’s candidate for governor, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, who was declared to have received the second-highest number of votes by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was likewise ineligible to run at the time of the election.
Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Obafemi Hamzat, the APC, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, and the LP are listed as the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth respondents, respectively, with INEC being the first respondent.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Labour Party (LP) candidates in the election should be disqualified for “non-compliance” with the Election Act of 2022 and INEC’s rules, according to the PDP governorship candidate.
Adediran further requested that any votes made in their favor be deemed useless.
Sanwo-Olu received 762,134 votes, beating over Rhodes-Vivour, who received 312,329 votes, as well as Adediran, who received 62,449 votes to finish third.
Both the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and Action Peoples Party (APP), who both submitted petitions to contest Sanwo-victory, Olu’s omitted Funmilayo Kupoluyi and Abiola Adeyemi from their lists of candidates. These two women were the only female candidates for governor in the race.
In their individual petitions, both parties claimed that Sanwo-Olu and his deputy lacked the necessary qualifications to run in the election and that INEC had violated the Election Act’s and the 1999 Constitution’s requirements.
In addition to the elections for governor, petitions were also submitted to contest the victories of James Abiodun Faleke, the secretary of the Tinubu/Shettima campaign organization for the 2023 presidential elections, Femi Gbajabiamila, a former deputy governor of Lagos, Oluranti Adebule, and other candidates.
