The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has fixed Monday for judgement in the petition filed by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the July 14 governorship election , Prof. Kolapo Olusola.
Olusola is challenging the electoral victory of the All Progressives Congress candidate, Dr . Kayode Fayemi.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had declared Fayemi as the winner of the election.
In the over 700-page petition filed on Friday, Olusola asked the Ekiti Governorship Election Petition Tribunal to declare him as the winner of the election “ having scored the majority of lawful votes . ”
The tribunal has communicated date to the parties in the matter.
The Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ekiti State , Mr . Jackson Adebayo , confirmed that to our correspondent on Saturday.
Jackson said counsel for the PDP had already been contacted.
Recall that Olusola had while filing the petition said he had resolved to reclaim his mandate which was hijacked by “ political desperadoes. ”
Olusola had said , “ Today , I formally filed the much -expected petition against the results of the July 14, 2018 governorship election , which was openly manipulated by political desperadoes , using instruments of the federal government.
“ Like I have maintained , I am challenging the election results not out of desperation to be governor , but for reasons of the future and posterity , and largely on behalf of the people of Ekiti , who were taken aback by the outcome of the election.
“ Without a doubt , the will of the people was subverted by those who have chosen to take Nigeria back to the dark days of ballot stuffing , ballot boxes snatching and outright falsification of election results and I believe they deserve to get justice.
“ As law- abiding citizens of our country, the only path of honour to take in a situation like this is the process that we have initiated today , to seek redress against the use of security forces and other instruments of the federal government to suppress the will of our people. ”
But in a statement by the Director of Media and Publicity of Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation, Wole Olujobi , said filing the action was the right of the petitioner as it would strengthen democracy.
“ Even though it is the petitioner’s right to seek legal redress in his complaint , it is a fact that the July 14 governorship election that returned Dr Kayode Fayemi is one of the best elections conducted by INEC in this country in which the will of the people was freely expressed through the ballot box .
“ For this reason, Fayemi won one of the best , freest and fairest elections in Nigeria as attested to by the elite election monitoring group , Transition Monitoring Group , which rattled Governor Ayodele Fayose , who thereafter assembled fake observers group populated by PDP members who tried to discredit the exercise.
“ We won the election in a very free and fair manner and we have no doubt that the tribunal will find this to be the case too in their final judgement.
“ Judgment on the petition will be in accordance to the law and not to the terms of the petitioner, and so Eleka cannot be a judge in this case as he sought to do in his petition.
“ Now that he has filed his petition, he should leave the tribunal to decide if he won or not and not to prejudge , as the petitioner tried to do in his complaint to the tribunal. ”
Source: Punchng