Governor Gboyega Oyetola of Osun State on Thursday said his electoral victory at the Court of Appeal had proved that there was a limit to the extent to which falsehood and propaganda could be used to suppress the truth and will of the people.
Oyetola in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Adeniyi Adesina, said in Osogbo that the victory had validated the mandate the people of the state freely gave to him in September 2018.
INEC had declared Oyetola and the APC the winner of the Osun State governorship election on the basis of the cumulative results of the September 22, 2018 main election and the September 27, 2018 supplementary poll.
Dissatisfied with the result declared by INEC, the PDP and Adeleke had filed their petition before the three-man Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, contending that they were the true winner of the election as they had already won after the September 22, 2018 poll and that there was no need for the supplementary election held on September 27, 2018.
The tribunal, in its March 22, 2019 split judgment of two-to-one, nullified Oyetola’s victory and declared Adeleke and the PDP the winner of the election.
The tribunal’s chairman, Justice Ibrahim Sirajo, in his minority judgment, dissented from the majority judgment credited to Justices Peter Obiorah and Adegboye Gbolagunte.