Supreme Court Affirms Adeleke As Osun PDP Governorship Candidate

The Supreme Court on Thursday affirmed Ademola Adeleke as the authentic governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun State.

A governorship aspirant under PDP, Oyedotun Babayemi had dragged Adeleke before a Federal High Court seeking to be declared as the candidate of PDP.

Babayemi had won the primary of the PDP faction held at the Children and Women Development Centre in Osogbo.

Adeleke won the primary held at Osogbo City Stadium, which was backed by the PDP national working committee.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had recognised Adeleke as the duly-elected candidate for the PDP.

The judge of the federal high court, Nathaniel Ayo-Emmanuel in a judgement delivered on May 18 had ruled that the primary which produced Babayemi is null and void.

Babayemi who was displeased with the ruling filed a suit at the court of appeal, Akure.

The governorship aspirant charged the appeal court to discard the judgement of the lower court.

The Court of Appeal on the 20th of July, 2022, however, upheld the verdict of the high court and consequently dismissed Babayemi’s appeal.

The Supreme court on Thursday in a unanimous judgement by a five-man panel of justices, dismissed an appeal that was lodged against Adeleke by Babayemi.

Counsel to Babayemi, Adebayo Adelodun, SAN, withdrew the appeal after the panel led by Justice Amina Augie drew his attention to the fact that the case was statute barred.

The panel had maintained that the appeal was incompetent, stressing that it was filed outside the 14 days provided by the law.