The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal challenging the candidacy of the Osun State Governor-elect, Senator Ademola Adeleke as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the Osun July 16 governorship poll.
A five-member Justices of the Apex court, presided by Justices Amina Augie held that the appeal filed against Adeleke’s candidature by a PDP governorship aspirant, Dotun Babayemi through his lawyer was filed out of time as stipulated by law in a pre-election matter.
The panel noted that a pre-election matter has a period of 14 days to elapse after judgment and the appellant filed after 15 days against the stipulated time period.
Efforts made by counsel to the appeallant, Adebayo Adelodun a Senior Advocate of Nigeria to convince the panel to take a look at the merits of the appeal proved abortive as the court held that it lacks jurisdiction to entertain the matter.
It was a wild jubilation among the supporters of the Osun State governor elect immediately the court gave the verdict. Babayemi, who asked the court to invalidate the primary election that produced the governor-elect, cited non-compliance with a court order. Both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal in Osogbo had earlier upheld the governorship primary that produced Adeleke.
