Buruji Kashamu vs Dapo Abiodun: Tribunal reserves judgment

The National and State Houses of Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, has reserved judgment in a petition brought before it by the All Progressives Congress candidate, Dapo Abiodun, against the Senator representing Ogun-East in the National Assembly, Buruji Kashamu. The Chairman of the 3-man panel, Justice Ebiowei Tobi, in the case numbered EPT/SEN/ABK/001/2015, said he reserved judgment to a later date which “will be communicated to counsel.”Also all the counsel in the matter adopted their final addresses and made final submissions to further convince the court on their cases.

Speaking the 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.Ali said, “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 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: “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 has elected its Senator.”

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About Unknown

Deji Sadiq, a.k.a DEJI OF LAGOS is a LASU trained Economist turned freelance journalist, a Blogger, an information strategist, a public affairs analyst and a committed activist with a passion for equal opportunities.