Adeleke's claim about the Tribunal judgment is borne out of ignorance.......By Ibrahim Lawal

 

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I watched with utter amusement the state broadcast of the interim Governor of Osun, Senator Nurudeen Jackson ademola Adeleke, where he claimed  that only two judges out of  the three delivered judgment today  at the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal and that the third judge abstained from delivering any judgment  even when the signature of the said judge is clearly on the majority judgment. 

While I sympathise with the Ede born interim Governor for his lack of understanding on how Election Petition Tribunal works, i am utterly disappointed in the legal team who would have advised the Interim Governor to read out such abominable statements. 

For the education of those that wishes to get educated, if an Election Tribunal delivered a unanimous judgment,  only the chairman will read the judgment. It is only where there is a split decision that a judge will read the majority judgment while the other judge reads the dissenting judgment. 

The only issue that may arise is only if a judge did not append his signature on the judgment, then one can conclude that the judge was not part of the judgment.  

In 2018, when the interim Governor approached the Tribunal to challenge the victory of Governor Oyetola, there was a split decision where the Chairman of the Tribunal wrote a dissenting judgment, one of the judges read the majority judgment and the chairman delivered the  dissenting judgment. There was no hullabaloo about issues of the third member of the tribunal not delivering his own judgment.

One can only advise the legal team to get busy and look for reasonable grounds for their appeal rather than frivolities that will lead them nowhere.

Ibrahim Lawal is a legal practitioner based in Ibadan.