The duo of Governor Babajide Sanwoolu and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat will today Friday know their fate, if they will continue in office or otherwise as the Supreme Court delivers judgement in cases filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) challenging the outcome of the March 2023 governorship election and their qualifications to contest that election in the first instance.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the election afetr polling a total of 762,134 votes to defeat LP’s Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour with a total of 312,329 votes. The PDP’s candidate, Olajide Adediran polled 62,449 votes to emerge third.
After the tribunal confirmed that indeed Sanwoolu and Hamzat actually won the election, the opposition LP and PDP approached the Appeal Court, which also upheld the decision of the tribunal.
In their judgement, the justices of the appellate court unanimously dismissed the appeal of the LP and the PDP for what is described as ‘lack of merit’.
The court said: “Even though they were all pre-election matters, the appellants (PDP and Adeniran) still failed to prove them. The appellants came empty-handed and left empty-handed. They merely enjoyed their day in court. Their petition is dismissed”
Rhodes-Vivour and Adediran were not satisfied with the judgement and hence approached the supreme for the final judgement. The pronouncment of the court brings to an end, all issues about the March election in Lagos state.
Sanwo-olu and Hamzat are on their second term in office after taking over form Akinwunmi Ambode in 2019.
Not satisfied, the LP and PDP candidates approached the Lagos State Election Petitions Tribunal to nullify Sanwo-Olu’s victory.
In its ruling on September 25, the tribunal dismissed Adediran and Rhodes-Vivour’s suit seeking to nullify the victory of Sanwo-Olu at the poll.