Elections Petition Tribunal Nullifies Election Of Senator Buruji Kashamu
Category: Nigerian National News
The National and state Assembly Elections Petition Tribunal sitting in
Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital has cancelled the election of a Buruji
Kasahamu, a Nigerian senator wanted by the US for drug-related offenses.
The tribunal made the decision today in Abeokuta and ordered a rerun.
Prince Dapo Abiodun, the All Progressives Congress, APC Ogun East
Senatorial candidate in the March 28 Presidential and National Assembly
Election challenged Kashamu’s victory at the tribunal, claiming that
Kashamu was not validly elected.
Instead, Abiodun wanted the tribunal to declare him the winner.
At the hearing on 3 August, all the counsels in the matter adopted
their final addresses and made final submission to further convince the
court on their cases.
Counsel to the petitioner, Yusuf Ali (SAN) argued that result sheets
made available to agents at the polling units were different from the
Certified True Copies,CTC, brought before the court by the Independent
National Electoral Commission, INEC.
In his alternative prayer, Ali also prayed the court to nullify
Kashamu’s election on ground that Dapo Abiodun won the majority valid
votes, adding that the Senator was not qualified to contest the election
in the first place because of his alleged drug-related cases against
him.
According to him,”Our position is that we won the election, but was
denied victory and the tribunal should restore us into the victory path.
That is the summary of our case.
“We have the alternative prayers, one was that if we do the proper
calculation of the valid votes, Dapo Abiodun would have the majority of
valid votes, and we said based on that, nullify the election of Buruji
and declare Dapo Abiodun the winner.
“In case the tribunal does not agree, by looking at the documents we
brought after the conclusion of votes in each polling stations, Dapo
Abiodun’s agents were given copies of the result which we tendered but
we need INEC to bring the Certified True Copies and we now discovered
that the ones they brought were different with the material particulars
of the ones they gave to us on the day of the election.
“We now said if the tribunal agrees that such differences point to
irregularities, we have asked the tribunal to nullify the election and
order fresh election, those are our alternative prayers.
Our allegation again was that Buruji Kashamu was not qualified to run
for the election having regards to a lot of issue on his extradition
and based on those issues, he shouldn’t have contested election.”
In his counter arguement, Counsel to Kashamu, Ajibola Oluyede (SAN)
said the petition was brought based on documents produced by the
petitioner himself saying such documents are not admissible before the
court.
“You were in court and you saw that the petitioner’s case was based
on documents he produced himself, and he rejected the documents that
were produced by the umpire and it is those ones he produced himself
that he wants the court to rely upon.
“So, the arguments focused on those documents, all we are waiting for
is for the court to give its judgement. We are very confident that the
court would uphold the decision of the electorate, the electorate has
elected its Senator,”Ajibola said.
After listening to all the counsels, the Chairman of the three man
panel, Justice Ebiowei Tobi said he reserved judgement to a later date
which ‘will be communicated to counsels’. Friday is now the Judgment
Day.
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