Supreme Court Affirms Sanwo-Olu’s election as Lagos governor

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is to continue in office for a second term following the affirmation of his March 18 governorship election by the Supreme Court sitting in Abuja on Friday.

This is as the apex court dismissed the appeal of Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party against the election of Sanwo-Olu, for lacking in merit.

Justice Garba Lawal prepared and read the lead judgement in the Lagos State governorship dispute.

Other justices, who made up the panel for Lagos are Justice Inyang Okoro, Justice Emmanuel Agim, Justice Uwani Abba-aji, and Justice Adamu Jauro.

According to the court, the petition is a gross abuse of court process.

Persecondnews recalls that Sanwo-Olu, was declared winner of the March 18 gubernatorial election, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

According to the results announced by the INEC, Sanwo-Olu polled a total of 762,134 votes to defeat his close challenger, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party (LP), who scored 312,329 votes, and Abdulazeez Adediran popularly known as Jandor, governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who came a distant third with 62,449 votes.

Not satisfied, the LP and PDP candidates approached the Lagos State Election Petitions Tribunal to nullify Sanwo-Olu’s victory.

In its ruling on September 25, the tribunal dismissed Adediran and Rhodes-Vivour’s suits seeking to nullify the election of Sanwo-Olu at the poll.

In a unanimous judgment, the three-person Tribunal presided over by Justice Arum Ashom, threw out the petition for lacking in merit, as it also held that all the issues raised by the petitioners are pre-election matters of which the Tribunal lacks jurisdiction to entertain.

Also displeased with the tribunal verdict, the duo approached the appellate court, which also dismissed their suits.

A three-member panel of the Appellate Court led by Justice Yargata Nimpar, upheld the decision of the election petition tribunal, and held that the two appeals were lacking in merit.