Tribunal reserves judgment in petition against Kashamu’s election

National and State House of Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, on Monday,  reserved judgment in a petition by the All Progressives Congress candidate in the Ogun East Senatorial District, Mr. Dapo Abiodun, against the election of Senator Buruji Kashamu in the March 28 election.

At the resumed hearing of the case on Monday, all the counsel for the litigants adopted their final addresses after making their final submissions to further convince the court on their cases.

But after listening to the counsel, the Chairman of the three man panel, Justice Ebiowei Tobi, said he reserved judgment to a later date, “which will be communicated to counsel.”

Earlier, counsel for the petitioner, Yusuf Ali (SAN), argued that result sheets made available to agents at the polling units were different from the Certified True Copies brought before the court by the Independent National Electoral Commission.


He also prayed the court to nullify Kashamu’s election on the ground that Abiodun won the majority valid votes, adding that the Senator was not qualified to contest the election in the first place.

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He said, “Our position is that we won the election but was denied victory, and the tribunal should restore us into the victory path; that’s the summary of our case.

“We have two 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 his counter argument, counsel for Kashamu, Ajibola Oluyede (SAN), said the petition was brought based on documents produced by the petitioner, saying such documents were not admissible before the court.
He said, “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 judgment. We are very confident that the court would uphold the decision of the electorate; the electorate had elected its Senator.”