BY ODUNAYO OGUNMOLA
Drama has never ceased to happen at the Election Petition Tribunal adjudicating on the dispute arising from the June 20, 2026 governorship election conducted in Ekiti State.
The venue of the sitting, the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), located within the Ekiti State Judiciary Headquarters, High Court Complex, Ado Ekiti has been the setting for an election petition that has generated least attention so far in the history of the state.
Unlike the past election petition cases in the state in which the court premises received large number of party leaders, members, journalists, members of the public and other observers, it appears the latest petitions are being taken with a pinch of salt because some stakeholders believe that they “weak, frivolous and needless.”
The past election petition cases in the state especially Alliance for Democracy v Ayo Fayose and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) filed in 2003, Kayode Fayemi and Action Congress (AC) v Segun Oni and PDP filed in 2007, Kayode Fayemi and AC v Segun Oni and PDP (rerun) filed in 2009 and Kolapo Olusola and PDP v Kayode Fayemi and APC filed in 2018 were epic legal battles that generated interests and set the state on the edge throughout the times they lasted in court.
The two election petition cases (2007-2008 and 2009-2010) between Fayemi and Oni generated not only local and national interests, they equally commanded global attention. During the proceedings, party faithful would have arrived court two hours before sittings began and they would stay till sittings, which sometimes dragged into evening time, were concluded.
An Ekiti-born lawyer who plies his trade outside the state was surprised that any party would go to court to challenge the result of the last election that produced Governor Biodun Oyebanji as winner in which he and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) secured an overwhelming re-election.
The lawyer who saw one of this writer’s write-ups on the proceedings of the latest petitions of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Action Alliance (AA) against the re-election of Oyebanji and the APC said the cases were not supposed to be filed in the first instance and were meant to waste the time of the three-member panel.
This writer responded that filing of petitions (no matter how frivolous and weak they may look) remains the constitutional rights of candidates and political parties that participate in an election and such rights cannot be denied under law. It is now left for the courts to look into the merits or the otherwise of such cases and arrive at a decision in line with the provisions of the Practice Direction and the Electoral Act (as amended).
The apparent struggles by the two opposition parties (the SDP and the AA) to get witnesses to testify for them have given credence to belief in many quarters in the state their petitions are weak and should not be accorded with any serious attention by the public unlike the past election petition cases that were keenly contested in court and followed in the media.
In the last Ekiti governorship election, the APC polled 319,224 votes to sweep to victory while the PDP received 40,543 votes to come a distant second. The SDP garnered 179 votes while the AA only got 126 votes. The PDP and its candidate, Dr Wole Oluyede initially filed a petition but later withdrew the case.
The SDP also filed a petition but its candidate, Isaac Adebayo Alade withdrew from the case and his name was struck off the petition but the party is still in court with the law firm of its presidential candidate, Adewole Adebayo providing the legal backing for the court battle.
The AA is also in court with its candidate, Matthew Olu Omotoso. The prosecution of the petition is also being handled by the law firm of the SDP presidential candidate Adebayo at the Tribunal.
At the sitting of the Tribunal on Wednesday, 7th October, 2026, the two political parties through their counsel, Nnamdi Chukwudebelu, made an oral application for an adjournment from the the three-member panel for them to assemble more witnesses to assist in proving their petitions.
The panel granted a one week adjournment to enable the petitioners to bring more witnesses they intended to call to the Tribunal to give evidence. The panel Chairman, Justice Abubakar Idris Kutigi adjourned sitting till 15th October, 2026 which the panel believed was a long time for the SDP and AA to get more witnesses to testify for them in court.
The panel had several times harped on the need for the two parties to bring their witnesses before it to allow for day-to-day hearing of the petition because election petition cases are “sui generis,” in other words, they are to be conducted within a limited time and window stipulated by law.
A notable feature since the hearing of the two petitions began was the apparent struggle of the two parties to bring their witnesses to the Tribunal and this had witnessed short adjournments. But at the Wednesday’s sitting, Justice Kutigi emphasized that the panel won’t tolerate any further waste of time.
The panel Chairman said: “We are very cognisant of our time, so we plead with INEC to get ready, so that as soon as the petitioners finished presenting witnesses, then the first respondent can start its defence immediately and without delay.
“This application is granted, but we are making it clear that we won’t allow any waste of time as provided by the schedules. Election petition is time-bound and we need to work in line with the provisions of the law.”
Responding, the petitioners’ counsel, Chukwudebelu, alluded to an internal crisis within the SDP which, according to him, is hampering its capacity to bring witnesses to court with the six-week window allowed by law for the party and the AA to prosecute their petitions gradually running out.
“My Lords, I had earlier told you about my predicament, which borders on some internal issues in SDP regarding our witnesses. You have seen for yourselves the burden we had passed through to present witnesses here.
“I humbly request for adjournment till next week Thursday, so that I will be able to attend to some of these issues,” Chukwudebelu said.
In the early days of sitting, there was an uproar outside the courtroom with SDP members in Ekiti State threatening to attack lawyers handling the party’s petition on grounds the local chapter of the party did not authorize them to file the petition. According to them, they had washed their hands off the case since their governorship candidate, Alade, had withdrawn.
The aggrieved party members alleged that many of the witnesses being brought to the court to give evidence are unknown to them. They vowed that they would not fold their arms while alleged impostors are giving evidence in a case involving their party.
Although the situation was brought under control on the day the incident occurred and subsequent days with more security reinforcement, the aggrieved SDP members have not been showing up in court as hearing of the petition continued.
The Tribunal is waiting for the elusive witnesses of the SDP and the AA and 15th October is around the corner to know the direction the two petitions are headed. Whenever the two parties close their cases, INEC (the 1st Respondent) will open its case after which Governor Oyebanji (the 2nd Respondent) will open his case.