Fayemi Presents Defence For Olusola’s Petition Before Election Tribunal

Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the Ekiti State governor elect, have filed his defence to the petition put forward by Peoples’ Democratic Party’s candidate in the 2018, July 14 governorship election in the state, Prof. Kolapo Olusola.

35 lawyers, who will be led by eight Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) are standing in the defence for the in-coming governor.

The SANs are Prince Lateef Fagbemi, Chief Akin Olujimi, Jelili Owonikoko, John Baiyeshea, Segun Ajibola, Mr Hakeem AfoIabi, Mr. Yomi Aliyu and Dr. Kayode Olatoke.

In the 2,558-page defence with over 3,000 documents as exhibits, Fayemi averred that he won the gubernatorial election of July 14, 2018 and urged the tribunal to dismiss Olusola’s petition for lacking in merit.

Three SAN led the group of lawyers to the Tribunal, with them is 3,500 exhibits and 1,009 witnesses.

One of the SAN, Olatoke, who spoke to the press, on behalf of his colleague insist that the outgoing Deputy governor’s petition is a waste of time, as it lake substance.

He assured that the case will be trashed by the tribunal in no time.

According to him, Olusola won only four Local Governments in the state, while their client got the remaining 16 local government out of the twenty.

He said Eleka’s first ground in his petition was based on Fayose’s phantom indictment, which had been nullified and set aside by a competent court.

“The second ground of Eleka’s (Olusola) petition is alleged over voting, which is another false claim. In any case, the petition in itself is self-defeating.

“The third ground is on deliberate voiding of votes as alleged by Eleka but in actual fact, majority of the voided ballots were votes meant for Fayemi, while the fourth ground is on vote-buying which is baseless as it was, Eleka’s sponsor, Fayose that was guilty of this.

“Fayemi won convincingly based on his popularity,” Olatoke said.

No date has been fixed for hearing.