Adegboyega Oyetola, Osun State governor may engage as much as 50 lawyers, including senior advocates, to challenge the victory of Ademola Adeleke, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, in Saturday’s governorship election in the state.
Kunle Adegoke, a member of the governor’s legal team gave this indication in an interview on Tuesday.
Adegoke who spoke to The Punch said that they were still reviewing the results declared by INEC.
“We are still reviewing documents and the legal team is actually working. In an election of this nature, the documents will be so many; so it is important to look at them critically before we make a decision and that is exactly what we are working on right now,” he said.
“Dr Biodun Layonu (SAN), is the leader of the team. The legal team is not complete yet because there are so many others that will still come in.
“In the meantime, the two members of the legal team we can reveal are Dr Biodum Layonu and Kunle Adegoke. Others that may come in are people we may not know but as soon as we are ready to move, we will notify the press.
“The membership can’t be determined as many lawyers are interested in joining the team. You know election petition is a special case. So, we allow as many lawyers that are interested to come in. We may run into 50 or more members.”
Meanwhile, on Tuesday the PDP and the governor-elect, Adeleke warned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) against allowing the All Progressives Congress to tamper with election materials.
This is as David Adeleke, a popular singer popularly called Davido, revealed on Tuesday that his uncle was yet to receive certificate of return from the electoral umpire days after winning the Osun election.
The electoral body had on Sunday declared Adeleke winner of the governorship election in the state. The Returning Officer for the election and Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, said Adeleke got a total of 403,371 votes to beat the incumbent APC governor, who polled 375,027 votes and 13 other candidates in the keenly contested race.
Oyetola won in 13 local government areas of the state to come second in the election.
In the meantime, Adeleke has warned INEC against tampering with the materials used for the July 16 poll.
Adeleke in a statement signed by the Chairman of his Media Management Team, Prince Diran Odeyemi, alleged that there were insinuations that the leadership of the APC was working on INEC to tamper with some electoral materials that would be used against Adeleke’s victory at the Election Petition Tribunal.
The statement alleged that some APC leaders had been moving around the local government offices of the commission to liaise with the INEC officials who would tamper with some election materials kept in their custody.
Adeleke called on the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to direct the commission’s officials in Osun to submit all electoral materials to the state headquarters.
The statement read in part, “There is rumour milling around the state that the leadership of the All Progressives Congress are romancing the INEC to tamper with some electoral materials that could be used against the victory of the governor-elect in their alleged proposed brief at the Election Petition Tribunal.
“Some APC leaders have been moving around local government offices of the commission to liaise with the INEC officials to tamper with some of the Electoral Materials in their custody.
“Senator Adeleke called on the INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, to call his officials in Osun State to order so as to prevent them from perpetrating the dastardly act.”