Adeleke’s Osun victory faces no legal challenge as petition deadline ends

GOVERNOR Ademola Adeleke’s victory in the August 15 Osun State governorship election has gone unchallenged after none of the defeated candidates filed a petition within the 21-day period allowed by law.

The deadline for challenging the election result expired on Saturday, with the Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal receiving no petition from any of the 14 parties that lost the contest.

Adeleke, who contested under the Accord Party, secured 511,067 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who recorded 444,815 votes.

The election featured candidates from 15 political parties. Following the declaration of the result by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s Returning Officer, Prof. Joshua Ogunwole, the tribunal registry was opened at the Osun State High Court premises in Oke Fia, Osogbo, to receive petitions arising from the election.

The registry remained open on Saturday, the final day for filing challenges. However, a tribunal official confirmed to Punch that no petition had been submitted.

The development effectively leaves Adeleke’s electoral victory without a judicial challenge from the opposition candidates within the statutory filing period.

Chairman of the Osun State Accord Party, Victor Akande, described the decision by the defeated candidates not to approach the tribunal as a sign of political maturity.

He said accepting an election result where the process is considered credible could strengthen democratic practice, rather than automatically resorting to litigation after every poll.

“We appreciate the maturity of the candidates of the opposition for not challenging the outcome of the poll,” Akande said, as quoted by the newspaper.

He added that allowing an election to end at the polling stage, where the process is adjudged credible, could be beneficial to democracy.

Governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Olugbenga Ajala, also said there was no basis for his party to challenge the outcome.

Ajala said the election was sufficiently fair and that his party accepted the result because it believed the winning candidate had legitimately emerged.

According to him, the SDP would have approached the tribunal if it had found serious shortcomings in the conduct of the election.

He said the absence of petitions reflected the opposition candidates’ assessment that the electoral process was fair enough to warrant acceptance of the result.