The Lagos State governorship election petition Tribunal on Wednesday granted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship Candidate for the last election, Azeez Adediran, also known as Jandor, permission to serve copies of their petitions on Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu through substituted means.
The Tribunal, which gave the order after entertaining a motion ex-parte filed by the PDP and Adediran, also granted them leave to serve Labour Party’s governorship Candidate for the state, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, through the same means.
The respondents in the petition numbered EPT/LAG/GOV/01/2023 are Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the All Progressives Congress (APC), Sanwo-Olu, Sanwo-Olu’s Deputy, Dr Hamzat Obafemi; APC, Rhodes-Vivour and the Labour Party (LP).
Adediran and his party, PDP, through their counsel, Austin Akpomreta, had informed the tribunal that he could not effect personal service of the petition on Sanwo-Olu, Hamzat and Rhodes-Vivour.
Akpomreta claimed that the respondents were not physically available to receive the court process stipulated by the law.
The lawyer, therefore, urged the Tribunal to grant him leave to serve the petition and other processes on the governor and his deputy through any officer or the secretary of APC at its Lagos State Secretariat located at 151 Acme Road, Ikeja.
He equally asked the Tribunal to grant him leave to serve the petition and other processes on Rhodes-Vivour through any officer or secretary of LP at its Lagos State Secretariat located at 59 Oduduwa Way, GRA, Lagos.
All the reliefs were granted by the Tribunal as prayed.
In the petition, Adediran and PDP claimed that Sanwo-Olu and his Deputy, Hamzat, were, at the time of the election, not qualified to contest.
The petitioners also argued that Rhodes-Vivour, who INEC declared to have scored the second-highest number of votes at the February 25 gubernatorial election, was, at the time of the election, also not qualified to contest.
The PDP governorship candidate called for the disqualification of Sanwo-Olu and Rhodes-Vivour in the election for non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 and INEC’s guidelines.
Adediran and PDP also asked that all votes cast for the two candidates in the election should be declared wasted and that he should be declared the winner of the election.
In the petition marked EPT/LAG/GOV/01/2023 and dated April 7, the petitioners said APC did not comply with the INEC timetable and schedule of activities for the 2023 general election, which stipulated that all political parties must give 21 days’ notice to INEC before the conduct of the primary election.
