 Members of the People's Democratic Party in Oshawa, Oshun State Capital and youth have protested against the verdict sacking Governor Adim al-Adiliki as governor of Oshun State. The Oshun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in a split document of two to one is declared that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, should withdraw the certificate of return issued to Adiliki and issue same to former Governor Adibuiga Uyitola. Now the protest is bearing placards with inscriptions such as Oshun citizens reject Uyitola on mandate we stand. Imoli has come to stay. The Tribunal panel is not fair on today's judgment, amongst others. Very well Governor Adim al-Adiliki has appealed to his supporters to remain calm, saying that he has appealed the judgment, assuring them that the injustice will be redressed at the appeal court. Joining us to discuss this is Ayodeji Ulogun. He is the Spokesperson, Transparency and Accountability Group TAG. And of course joining us later is Hashim Abioye. He's a PDP attorney. I want to say thank you Ayodeji for joining us. Can you hear me Ayodeji? Yes I can hear you. Thank you for having me. Good evening. Great. I know that this is something that the Governor, the former Governor had been speaking of even after he had handed over to Governor Adiliki, he had continuously said he was going to take this matter to court and here we are today having this discussion. Explain to us what you think, how you think things will turn out, because I mean Governor Adiliki is saying he's still Governor, he's not going to leave Government House. Of course by the value of the courts and by the norm, Governor Adiliki remains the Governor of the decision of the Supreme Court, I mean appeal court is taking and of course up to the Supreme Court which is the provision of the law. So between now and the appeal at the appeal court and subsequently at the Supreme Court, Governor Adiliki remains the Governor of the state. The judgment of today, even though has been passed, does not validate the fact that the former Governor, he told me to resume back in the office immediately, I'm aware that Governor Adiliki has filed a notice of appeal which will be heard and subsequently perhaps there will be another appeal to the Supreme Court except either of the two parties decide not to appeal what outcome of the appeal court will be. Having said that, it's also important to put into perspective the fact that politicians are the most hopeful people that you could ever come about, they don't give up easily and they don't accept easily, I mean they don't accept defeat easily and of course in politics you don't, you don't, you don't rejoice too much until when you have all the channels I mean exhausted for victory. In the case of Adiliki of course, the case was taken to court by the former Governor and we have been showing hope along the line as surely members of his party that the victory is coming there and what we have today is the assurance of that hope that he hasn't talked about relying on the provision of the law as far as the issue of voting and the use of both beavers in the election is concerned. Today the judgment of the court has been given two to one in the majority vote but of course as I've said the notice of appeal has been filed by Adiliki and we hope in another two months the court of appeal will give its judgment and then whatever happens there will determine if either of the two parties will still move the case on to the Supreme Court which is a terminating point of his use that concerns governorship election. Okay, I think joining us we have Hashim who's a PDP attorney. Hashim can you hear me? Hashim can you hear me? I think you need to unmute yourself so you can talk to me. Can you hear me? Hashim can you hear me? I think that you need to unmute yourself. I can hear you. Ah, perfect, great. You obviously are an attorney so you honestly- Hashim, not Hashim, Hashim. Hashim? Hashim, Hashim. Hashim. Okay, great. Hashim. All right Hashim, you are an attorney for the People's Democratic Party. Explain to us what has just happened. Even though, yes, we understand what the tribunal has said and the governor, I beg your pardon, Mr. Adiliki has of course appealed or filed an appeal to the appeal court and he's saying that there will be some form of redress. But looking at what the petition of former governor Yatala carried, he- it was on two grounds. First, he said that he claimed that the election was characterized by over-voting in 749 polling units. And also argued that the governor, Adiliki, had forged his academic credentials that he submitted to INEC to contest this election. Hashim, can you go ahead please? Yes, okay, thank you very much. Well, I would want you to read the majority decision of the tribunal very well and the minority decision of the tribunal. So before you form an opinion, but let me tell you straight away that, as far as section 138 of the Electoral Act 2022 is concerned, Senator Adiliki remains the governor of Osho State until the Court of Appeals says otherwise. We have from now, as allowed by the law, to appeal the judgment, the majority decision of the Court of Appeal. Majority decision, quote, unquote, so there's something about that, but we will be talking about it much later. But I want to say that the decision of Justice Kume and that of Chief Magistrate Torabi was not signed in law. Basically, the decision was based on a controversial primary, I mean on a controversial source. We have a secondary source. We have a primary source. The primary source of evidence that was before the tribunal was jettitioned by the majority, I mean the chairman of the tribunal and the Chief Magistrate, that is member two. We are talking about controversial pieces of evidence. If there are two controversial pieces of evidence, you don't prefer one to the other. There was a previous report gotten from the server by the petitioners. There was another one gotten from the server as well, issued by INEC. To tell you that there were two controversial reports from the server, and this server report that we're talking about, they have secondary pieces of evidence. So in a situation like that, you go to the primary source. You're talking about the beaver's machine reports, the reports from the beaver's machine, and you are talking about the server. Now there is a controversy about what is contained in the server report. Then you recall to the primary source. The primary evidence was clearly before the tribunal. The beaver's machines were before the tribunal. They were demonstrated and the tribunal in the judgment, given the majority decision, had learned that it was taken as demonstrated before the tribunal by the provision of the Electoral Act 2022. So if it had been taken as demonstrated, so why go to, why looking for another source of evidence to come to that the primary source of evidence? So can you use a secondary piece of evidence to negate the primary source of evidence? When the beaver's machine itself was before the tribunal, and the tribunal granted an order to the respondent, to the second respondent, specific leaders, Senators Ademola Adelike. Okay. I think that we lost that connection with you. But I just wanted to ask, looking at the case that you've made, that there are controversies, two controversial evidences, and the fact that these came from- And in the majority decision, get the report extracted from the beaver's machine directly, not from the beaver's this time around. I mean, not from the server this time around. And the tribunal also get the decision, the beaver's machine itself. So if the server report is talking about something else, and the beaver's machine that you claim produced the report in the server, have been placed before the tribunal, then why preferring a secondary source of evidence, which is controversial, which was challenged, frontally challenged, over and above another one that was before the tribunal. In this case, the primary source of evidence, the beaver's machine itself. So that's to tell you that the judgements, the majority decision of the tribunal, was one judgment with so many questions to be answered, and that will be done as about to move to the penultimate court. That is the Court of Appeal. So I believe by the Court of Appeal, we do justice to the majority decision that was delivered today. And I want to say that if you go by the minority decision, if you look at that decision and you go through it very well, you will see that it was very sad in law. It was clear that you cannot prefer a secondary piece of evidence to the one that came from the primary source, from the primary source itself. The minority decision clearly stated that as far as our electoral law is concerned, even though our electoral law has recognized technological device as part of the electoral process in terms of accreditation, in terms of verification and authentication of voter data, you cannot in any way get to the voter's register because the information on the beaver's machine or whatever technological device is to be deployed by INEC is contained in the voter's register. And going by the step by step by electoral process as provided for in the electoral guideline, beaver's machine goes concurrently with the voter's register. So we cannot prove overvoting without tendering the voter's register and without tendering the voter's, the beaver's machine itself. In this case, the petitioner has failed to tender either of the two, yet the tribunal relied on a controversial source to give victory to the petitioners. And one more thing is that the law is clear. That is the electoral law you can check from Section 50. Section 51. So you can read and go through it. You will see that if overvoting is established, if at all overvoting is established and it is found to be substantial, no return shall be made. If it is substantial, no return shall be made. If it is not substantial, the court will go ahead to declare the winner of the election. I mean, the court will not and will count the overvoting which is immaterial, which is not substantial as nothing at all. And the winner will remain the winner. But if it is substantial, no return will be made at all. Okay. That definitely... All right, Mr. Abyari, I would really like for you to hold on. Let's get Ayodeji back into this conversation. Ayodeji, he's made a very interesting position and talked extensively as to the evidence, the primary and secondary evidence that has been brought. He's talked about the majority and the minority in this particular vote that brought about this tribunal's position. Where do you stand on this? Do you totally agree? Of course, like the governor has said, this is subject to appeal. But let's hear your thoughts. Oh, of course. One can vividly understand the hand-good that Abyari Staiashian is coming from is a member of the PDP and is one of the legal team of that party. So his anger and his disappointment in that judgment is quite understandable. But then, as much as I'm not a lawyer, common sense would demand that when the judgment of this nature is given, especially when there's room for appeal, such a judgment should not be subject of dissection by lawyers or by ordinary persons on the street. What we should wait for is the filing of the appeal and then the decision of the judges at the appeal court to determine the grounds upon which the judgment was given at the tribunal and find whether the decision of the majority is signed enough to uphold what has been decided at the tribunal or otherwise. So I think it will not make such much sense to get to dissect the judgment as it has been given today. A judgment has been given. And whoever feels cheated or otherwise has the room for appeal, which of course am aware that the PDP has filed an appeal. And we should also put this into perspective that for those who are thinking that votes were erroneously cancelled and those votes belong to Nadeleke, which gave victory to Obokala. You should be understood that votes were cancelled across board. Votes were also cancelled from what Oetola got in the general election. He had the battery left for something in the election as announced by Heineck. And by the time the voting was removed, I think he came down to about $314,000 today. And Nadeleke came down to about $2,000, something thousand. So for people should understand that the usual voting does not involve only one of the parties. Our voting was rejected across two parties, both the APC and the PDP. And as such, the remaining votes were calculated and the judgment given. So whatever the outcome of today has been, the next step would be that the two, the debate that in this case, that's the PDP and Nadeleke, should move on to the appeal. He argued there are cases before the law justices of the appeal court. And let's see if the appeal court will be holding the decision of the tribunal or it will think otherwise. I just want to dwell a bit on this issue of overvoting before we wrap things up. Because one would look at the beavers and the technology that's been introduced into the voting system as one that's watertight and hoping that these kinds of teething problems would not arise. Being that also, or Shuana Kiti, where some sort of a litmus test for the general election, what does this mean for the general elections in its entirety? With what's happened now, will we also be afraid that we might have another case of overvoting and then tribunals going back and forth on this issue? I think there's one thing that the tribunal and the judgment of today has been able to give which is giving credence to the voting power of the electorate. There's no way now that anybody can do manipulation in election and this will give confidence to voters knowing fully well that their votes will count. As the electoral law is clear that where there is an overvoting and election such units or polling booth results should be cancelled and that's what the position of the tribunal today has been. And as much as we'll think on this is a challenge to the election I rather believe that this will uphold the electoral tendency it will allow INAQ-6 sites and it will allow politicians to know that manipulation cannot be done in the election. Simply because even if you rely on using unedited voters or you rely on writing figures from any quarter in your city or anywhere or decide to bring on due voters to the polling unit the beavers is clear once you are not captured on the beavers you cannot vote. And whatever the figure of the number of people captured by the beavers if it contradicts the total vote reported in that place it's not going to become null and void. So this begins another awareness on the part of this party organization and of course to every voter that as much as it is important that we vote we should also ensure that at the polling unit here we're going to vote in 2023 we ensure that whatever the result of the beavers is it's not in contradiction to whatever result is announced and that as that will amount to waste of effort and waste of votes. So I believe that with the same time between now and the 2023 election coming up in February for INAQ perfect whatever they need to do to rejuvenate the confidence of the body in people and to also tell politicians that look enough and then that come to what that means of victory rather than what the law makes provisions for. Okay I'd just like to let Mr. Hashim to you know give a final word Mr. Hashim going forward now don't forget that in Oshun state there's been this back and forth between the APC and the PDP about violence and clashes back to back I remember having a representative of the government and of course a representative of your party on the show and it looked more like you did it no I did it and now with this that's on the table how is the government of the PDP going to make sure that there is calm all through the land and there will not be any form of attacks even though there's been a bit of violence in your state? Well thank you very much quickly I want to say that reacting to the judgment in a way and manner it was delivered today does not mean prejudging what was before the tribunal because the judgment of the tribunal had been delivered had been rendered so I think commenting on it at this time does not mean that we are prejudging what is before the Court of Appeal so that is when we get to the Court of Appeal but as it is today what we are saying is that the majority decision was not signed in law at all and cannot be sustained on appeal I want to quickly say that the people's reports that the APC relied on heavily was presented at the tribunal to be what it was not and the minority decision clearly dealt with that but I need to quickly add that PDP is a party of peace PDP we in the PDP are peaceable we are peaceful and we don't subscribe to crisis in any way so it is only the APC that parent talks and all that here and there but I need to quickly remind my brother my friend there Mr. Yorogun that what he claims to be overvoting as contained let me say as purportedly contained in the Beaver's report was not overvoting so to say to establish overbooking we have to establish overbooking on the basis of the physical materials that were present at the polling unit but let me show that server was at the polling unit then you can now see there was open if actually there was at all so but I tell you that there was no overvoting as presented by the petitioners at the tribunal we have to go we have to go we have to go we have to go gentlemen unfortunately time is not on our side I want to say thank you Ayodeji Yorogun who is a spokesperson transparency and accountability group TAG and Hashim Abirye is an attorney for the people's democratic party in Oshun State thank you so much gentlemen for having this conversation with me Thank you very much thank you for having me thank you and that's our show tonight but we cannot leave you without bringing you the highlights of this week every Friday we give you you know a tease of what we had been talking about all through the week so I'm going to leave you with that but don't forget you still have an opportunity to pick up your PVC before all of this is put to bed and don't forget not just enough for you to pick up your PVC but be certain who you're going to vote for and why you're voting for them I'm Mary Anacone have a good evening and enjoy your weekend