Gov election: Tribunal strikes out APC's objection to PDP's petition

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The preliminary objection of the Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC) to dismiss the petition of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been struck out by the state Governorship Election Tribunal.

In the Lagos State governorship election, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the APC polled 762,134 votes to beat Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party (LP), who scored 312,329 votes. Jide Adediran (Jandor) of the PDP came a distant third, polling 62,449 votes.

Adediran and his party, the PDP, filed a petition alleging that during the election, Governor Sanwo-Olu and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, were ineligible to run for office on two grounds.

Adediran also said Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party, who INEC declared as the second-highest vote earner, was also unqualified at the time of the election.

The respondents in this case include INEC as the first respondent, followed by Sanwo-Olu, Hamzat, APC, Rhodes-Vivour, and the LP as the second to sixth respondents, respectively.

The PDP’s governorship candidate sought the disqualification of the APC and LP candidates due to alleged non-compliance with the Electoral Act of 2022 and INEC guidelines.

However, in their preliminary objection, the APC requested the Tribunal to dismiss the PDP’s petition, which was ultimately rejected by the tribunal.

The tribunal also struck out some paragraphs of the PDP’s petition, as well as an additional statement on oath filed outside the 21 days provided by the Electoral Act.

The Labour Party’s petition to have its name struck out from the PDP’s petition was also successful.