A’court strikes out Rhodes-Vivour’s appeal against Sanwo-Olu’s victory

The court of appeal in Lagos has dismissed the appeal filed by Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP), against the election of Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

The three-member panel led by Yargata Nimpar, in a unanimous decision delivered on Wednesday, affirmed the judgement of the election petitions tribunal that upheld the victory of Sanwo-Olu as the elected governor of Lagos in the March 18 election.

BACKGROUND

In March, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Sanwo-Olu as the winner of the March 18 Lagos governorship election.

Sanwo-Olu polled 762,134 votes to defeat his close challenger, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party (LP), who scored 312,329 votes.

Abdulazeez Adediran of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came a distant third with 62,449 votes.

On September 25, the Lagos governorship election tribunal dismissed the case filed by Rhodes-Vivour seeking to nullify the election of Sanwo-Olu.

Displeased with the verdict, the LP candidate filed 21 grounds of appeal challenging the judgement of the tribunal.

THE VERDICT

The judgement was read by Samuel Bola, a member of the panel, while Yargata Nimpar and Paul Bassey adopted the verdict.

The panel dismissed the issues raised by Rhodes-Vivour in his appeal against the verdict of the tribunal.

The panel held that the appellant did not provide enough evidence to support his claim that Sanwo-Olu and his running mate were not qualified to contest the election.

The panel also ruled that the tribunal was right to strike out the testimonies of three witnesses presented by the appellants.

The court of appeal upheld the decision of the tribunal on the rejection of Rhodes-Vivour’s witness, who gave testimony about the alleged renunciation of Nigerian citizenship by Obafemi Hamzat, Lagos deputy governor.

The panel ruled that Rhodes-Vivour’s appeal lacked merit.