2023: Tribunal dismisses petitions against Sanwo-Olu, describing PDP candidate as ‘busybody’

By Biola Adebayo On Sep 25, 2023

Bola Tinubu, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Portraits, — Lagos Governor. Babajide-Sanwo-Olu

The Lagos State Governorship Election Petition sitting in Ikeja has described the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the March 18 election, Olajide Adediran popularly known as Jandor, as a “busybody”.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winner of the election.

Dissatisfied, Jandor and Labour Party’s Gbadebo Rhodes-Vovour had headed for the tribunal.

While ruling on the petition of Jandor that Sanwo-Olu was not qualified to contest the election because he was improperly nominated and supported by his party, the tribunal held that it could not decide on that.

Justice Mikail Abdullahi, who read the judgment on behalf of the panel said the petition did not fall under the provisions of sections 177 and 182 of the Nigerian Constitution (as amended).

He also declared that the tribunal did not have powers to inquire into the primary election of the APC which produced Sanwo-Olu because the pre-election matter did not fall under its jurisdiction.

“Only an aspirant or member of a political party can complain about the outcome of the party’s primary, not a busybody like the petitioner,” he held.

The tribunal first focused on the preliminary objections filed by the parties before passing judgement on Jandor’s petition.

Earlier, the tribunal struck out the names of the Labour Party and its candidate among the list of respondents, saying a petition is contemplated to be filed between the winner and the loser of an election and not between two persons who lost.

As a result of this, the tribunal upheld the preliminary objection and later removed Rhodes-Vivour as the fifth respondent from Jandor’s petition.

The tribunal upheld the election of Governor Sanwo-Olu and Dr. Hamzat.