AbdulAzeez Olajide Adediran, also known as Jandor, is the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate for governor of Lagos State in the 2023 general election. He has filed a notice of appeal to overturn the state election petition tribunal’s ruling from September 25.
His legal team, led by Senior Advocate of Nigeria Clement Onwuenwunor, filed the 38-page document dated October 13 with 34 grounds for appeal.
The respondents in the notice of appeal included the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, his deputy Obafemi Hamzat, the All Progressive Congress (APC), the Labour Party, and its candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour.
In the grounds of appeal, Jandor said that “Contrary to the misleading conclusion of the tribunal, the issue of disqualification of the winner of an election is both a pre and post-election dispute and that it was highly erroneous of the tribunal to treat it as merely a pre-election issue”.
Along with requesting the disqualification of the Labour Party and APC candidates, the candidate and his party restated the reliefs requested in their petitions.
Additionally, Jandor criticized the tribunal for excluding the Labour Party and its candidate from his petition, particularly since he had accused Rhodes-Vivour of multiple offenses.
He pointed out that everyone who is the target of an accusation must be included as a party in the legal action because of this recognition.
Against the tribunal’s ruling, Jandor maintained that in order for him to benefit from their unforgivable transgressions, the tribunal had to nullify his candidacy because he had also claimed that Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour’s sponsorship was invalid.
In his appeal, the PDP candidate claimed that, based on certain of the materials he presented to the court, he was entitled to question Governor Sanwo-Olu’s post-secondary qualifications, which were founded on fictitious A Level WAEC certificates.
Together with other relief, he requests that the Court of Appeal rule that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction to determine that the various names on the various certificates that Sanwo-Olu produced belonged to the same individual.
That Sanwo-Olu and Hamzat were ineligible to run for governor on Saturday, March 18, 2023. Because both men were ineligible to run for office, all the votes cast in the election for both candidates and the APC were considered wasted.
Also, that Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the Labour Party’s candidate, was likewise ineligible to run for office, and that all of the votes cast for him and his party in the aforementioned election—which saw the second-highest number of votes cast—were wasted.
To this, Jandor claimed that he is the legitimately qualified candidate to be declared the winner of the aforementioned election, having received the third-highest number of votes in the contest and fulfilling all requirements outlined in the Electoral Act of 2022.
Therefore, he claimed that hetis the legally elected governor of Lagos State, and that INEC should immediately issue a Certificate of Return to him.
That the Certificate of Return issued to Sanwo-Olu is null, void, and of no effect.
