>
The Court of Appeal sitting in Ibadan, on Monday said there was miscarriage of justice at the Oyo State Election Petition Tribunal in the case between governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the March 9 governorship elections, Adebayo Adelabu, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate and current governor of Oyo State, Engr. Seyi Makinde, but could not order a retrial.
The four-man panel led by Justice Abubakar Yahaya held that the tribunal erred by not considering every document submitted by Adelabu to prove his case and lumping them together as one. It however did not give any consequential order to the effect.
The Appellate Court in its ruling went on to resolve all the four issues raised by Adelabu in favour of Makinde. The court noted that it allowed the appeal because there were issues of miscarriage of justice at the lower court but added that a judgement must be given after considering the situation in its entirety.
The court further noted that in the present situation, the 180 days mandated for the tribunal to operate had lapsed and there was consequently no reason to touch the ruling of the lower court.
Adelabu had filed an appeal through his counsel, Yusuf Alli (SAN), against the judgement of the tribunal upholding the victory of the PDP and its candidate, Makinde.
He had prayed the court to dismiss the judgment of the lower court and order a fresh election while counsel to Makinde urged the court to dismiss the appeal and uphold the judgement of the tribunal.