From Babalola Ojo
The All Progressives Congress legal term in Osun State has disowned a petition filed on behalf of the party to challenge the victory of Governor Ademola Adeleke in the last month Governorship election in the state.
According to the notices signed by the Tribunal Secretary, Belemo Diete-Spiff, in the first petition, the Osun APC governorship candidate, Asiwaju Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji and the All Progressives Congress were the petitioners, while Ademola Nurudeen Jackson Adeleke, Accord Party and the Independent National Electoral Commission, were the respondents in the suit with the number EPT/Os/Gov/01/2026.
The notices of the two petitions were displayed on the notice board of the tribunal, located at the premises of the State High Court in Osogbo, on Monday.
In the second petition with the number EPT/Os/Gov/02/2026, Peoples Democratic Party was the petitioner while the Independent National Electoral Commission, Accord Party and Senator Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke were the respondents.
One of the leaders of the team, Adekunle Adegoke (SAN) said no petition was filed on behalf of the APC candidate, Bola Oyebamiji and the party before the tribunal.
Adegoke said a decision had been taken not to challenge the outcome of the election.
According to him, “Right from the second day of the election, at the level of the legal team being led by about 4 Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Dr Biodun Layoonu (SAN), Dr Yomi Aliyu (SAN) myself Kunle Adegoke (SAN) and Dr Muritala Abdulrasheed (SAN) and we have other legal luminaries Professors of law and what have you in the legal team, Prof Mojeed Alabi and many others, we advised our client that the best in this circumstance is for us not to go to the tribunal.
“The legal team has been in existence for more than seven years now, when we are going into an election and the result of the election is being announced, we know where there are loopholes, we know what we can challenge. At this particular point in time, we want to prove to the minds of the people that at the level of the APC, we are not termagant, we are not just litigious people that are just interested in causing brouhaha in the populace. We dont have anything personal against Nurudeen Adeleke the governor or any other person in other party whether PDP or Accord.
“We are principled and when we want to challenge or fight for something we, fight on the basis principle. That is one thing we want to make clear to the people. And when we decided that we are not going to the Tribunal, we needed to let out client understand why we had taken that decision. We took our client through a gamut of our findings. Its not like maybe the election was free, it doesn’t mean there were no malpractices. There are valid ground to challenge the result of the election and we decided let the populace rest”.
“Let there be some peace and our client said yes, if it’s going to take us another four years to get things together for the people of Osun let us allow it. And that is the decision we took.
Right from the second day, 16th of August, when the result of the election was announced, that is why we allow time to play out a little before our client came out and congratulated the Governor Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke,” Adegoke said.
He added, “Our client having willingly without pressure, without duress congratulated Governor Adeleke, do you now think it will be legitimate as a man of honour for Asiwaju Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji to go behind and authorise the filling of a petition? The petition is just a piece of papers without good substance. No good petition will come from a seasoned election petition lawyer that will contain such a penchant context. It is never done. I want to be on record that the APC legal team has denounced the bundle of papers filed by some individuals masquerading as APC lawyers. It was not authorized by APC as a party or its candidate.” {Daily Trust}