The Court of Appeal Abuja has restored the vote buying allegations made by the Peoples Democratic Party and its governorship candidate, Oladipupo Adebutu against Dapo Abiodun of the All Progressives Congress.
The appellate court gave the ruling in an appeal filed by Adebutu and PDP on the 6th of July, 2023, which was heard on August 3, 2023.
The appeal was against the ruling of Justice Hamidu Kanuza of the Ogun State Governorship Tribunal delivered on June 19, 2023, on vote buying during the March 18, Governorship election in Ogun State.
The Tribunal had ruled in favour of Abiodun and struck out Adebutu’s reply to Abiodun’s reply to the petition.
Delivering Judgement written by Justice Mohammed Idris and read by Justice Aliyu Waziri, the court sustained paragraphs 2, 4,5,6,10,11,14,15,16 and 18 of Adebutu and PDP’s reply to Abiodun’s reply to the petition.
The sustained paragraphs of the petitioners’ reply bother on the submission of forged certificate to INEC by Dapo Abiodun, violence and distruption of polling units by agents of Abiodun and allegation of vote buying.
Also, the sustained paragraphs includes Adebutu’s defence on the allegation of vote buying raised by Dapo Abiodun in his reply to the petition.
At the tribunal, Counsel to the Petitioners,Gordy Uche, had argued that the petitioners did not raise any new fact in their reply but gave a response to the new issue raised by the 2nd respondent in his reply which was not part of the issues raised in the petition.
The Chairman of the Ogun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, Justice Kunaza had in a ruling on a motion filed by Dapo Abiodun seeking the tribunal to strike out Adebutu’s reply to their reply to the petition, on the grounds that they cannot raise new fact in their response to the reply of the 2nd respondent
