Osun Tribunal Admits BVAS Reports, Other Documents From Oyetola

The Osun State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal has admitted in evidence, the Certified True Copies (CTC) of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) reports tendered by Governor Gboyega Oyetola.

It shows alleged over-voting in favour of Sen. Ademola Adeleke, during the July 16 governorship election in the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalled that Gov Oyetola and APC had on Aug. 5 submitted a petition before the tribunal in Osogbo.

Oyetola and APC were challenging the election results from 749 polling units across 10 local government areas of the state for various alleged electoral malpractice, especially over-voting.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Adeleke as the winner of the July 16 governorship election, having polled 403, 271 votes against 375,027 polled by Oyetola.

Also, admitted by the tribunal in evidence were Adeleke’s Diploma Certificate from Penn Foster High School, B.Sc Certificate from Atlanta Metropolitan State College, Letter of Attestation dated 22/5/2016 from Ede Muslim High School, NYSC Certificate of Exception and some other documents as exhibits.

Others document were forms EC8As, for Olorunda, Obokun and Ila Local Governments, forms EC8Bs, being results of the wards and forms EC8Cs- the results of each of the 10 local governments being challenged, forms EC8D, which is the summary of the overall result, EC8Es, the declaration of the result and form EC9.

At the resumed hearing of the tribunal in Osogbo, Counsel to  Oyetola, Dr Saka Layoonu (SAN), while formally tendering the documents including the BVAS reports, informed the tribunal that the evidence had been jointly cross-checked by both parties, the secretariat of the tribunal and confirmed to be accurate.

Counsel to INEC, Mr Jamiu Olabode, however, objected to the admissibility of the documents, but said that he would state his reasons in the final written address.

Similarly, Counsel to Adeleke, Niyi Owolade and that of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nathaniel Oke, also objected the admissibility of the documents tendered by the petitioners.

They, however, said they would state the reasons in their final written addresses.

Oke also called the attention of the tribunal to what he described as imbalance reportage of the proceedings from court by some media houses.

“My Lords, we are not comfortable with the reports of proceedings by pressmen in this court,” he said.

In his ruling, the Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Tertsea Kume, admitted in evidence all the documents tendered by the petitioners and marked them as exhibits.

Kume adjourned continuation of the hearing until Nov. 16.

On the issues of imbalance reportage raised by the PDP Counsel, Kume asked for evidence to that effect.

“We cannot comment on what we don’t know, unless you come up with hard facts.

“We are not here for social media commentaries,” he said. (NAN)

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