Court Grants Fayemi Access to Electoral Materials

Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti

The Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Ado Ekiti on Monday granted the governor-elect and the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the July 14 governorship election in Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, access to materials used for the conduct of the election.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the election and Deputy Governor of the state, Prof. Kolapo Olusola, had last Friday filed a 700-page petition against Fayemi’s victory.

In the petition, where he raised issues of alleged falsification of results, ballot stuffing and snatching and brazen abuse of powers, Olusola prayed the court to declare him the actual winner of the poll on the strength that he polled the highest number of lawful votes.

At Monday’s proceeding, Fayemi was represented by Messrs Yomi Ariyo, Ayodeji Odu, R. O Balogun and I. K Olarewaju.

The governor-elect and applicant in the suit, had on July 31 filed an application before the court that he and his party, APC be granted access to the materials to prosecute his case.

Delivering judgment on the application, Justice Suleiman Belgore said he decided to grant the application for the applicants (Fayemi and APC) to be able to defend the petition and in the spirit of fair hearing.

Justice Belgore said the application filed on the 31st July, 2018 has been granted based on the following: “That the counsel is seeking the order of the court to see the documents of the election materials.

“To make photocopy of the documents of the election materials.

“To use forensic equipment to view the handwriting of the election result, and the fingerprint of the election materials.

“Request the order of the court to obtain and photocopy all the election materials held on the 14th of July, 2018 which is also in custody of the respondents (PDP and Olusola).

“To seek forensic experts, to access both machine and other materials used in the conduct of the election in order to defend the petition filed by the respondents in the suit.

“To have all the materials used in all the pooling units of the election,” he said.

Belgore thereby granted merit to the application as it was approved also for the first respondent in the suit which is the PDP.