The Governor-Elect of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, yesterday filed his
\ndefence to the petition by the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party
\n(PDP) and outgoing Deputy Governor of Ekiti State, Professor Kolapo
\nOlusola Eleka.<\/p>\n
In the 2,558-page defence with over 3,000 documents as exhibits, Dr.
\nFayemi averred that he won the gubernatorial election of July 14, 2018 and
\nurged the tribunal to dismiss the petition of Prof. Eleka for lacking in
\nmerit.<\/p>\n
The team of lawyers armed with 3,500 exhibits and 1,009 witnesses were led
\nto the tribunal by three Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Mr Hakeem AfoIabi
\n(SAN), Mr. Yomi Aliyu (SAN)\u00a0 and Dr. Kayode Olatoke (SAN).<\/p>\n
Addressing\u00a0 the press after filing the petition, Dr. Kayode Olatoke
\n(SAN), who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, said Eleka’s petition was a
\nwaste of time as it lacked substance and was sure that the case would be
\ndismissed by the tribunal.<\/p>\n
He explained further that Fayemi won fair and square in 12 out of the 16
\nlocal governments areas of\u00a0 the state, while Eleka won in four.<\/p>\n
In his response to Eleka’s petition bordering on alleged\u00a0 over voting in
\nsome polling units, Olatoke dismissed this claim as frivolous and
\nbaseless.<\/p>\n
He said Eleka’s first ground in his petition\u00a0 is based\u00a0 on Fayose’s
\nphantom indictment, which had been nullified and set aside by a competent
\ncourt, Olatoke said.<\/p>\n
“The second ground\u00a0 of Eleka’s petition\u00a0 is alleged over voting, which is
\nanother false claim. In any case, the\u00a0 petition in\u00a0 itself is
\nself-defeating.<\/p>\n
“The\u00a0 third ground is on deliberate voiding of votes as alleged by Eleka
\nbut in actual fact, majority of the voided ballots were votes meant for
\nFayemi, while the fourth ground is on vote buying which is baseless as it
\nwas, Eleka’s sponsor, Fayose that was guilty of this.<\/p>\n
“Fayemi won convincingly based on his popularity,”\u00a0 Olatoke said.<\/p>\n
Other senior lawyers in the team representing Dr Fayemi and the APC are:
\nPrince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), Dr. Kayode Olatoke,(SAN ), Hakeem Afolabi
\n(SAN), John\u00a0 Baiyeshea (SAN), Chief\u00a0 Akin Olujimi (SAN), Jelili Owonikoko
\n(SAN), Yomi Aliyu (SAN) and Segun Ajibola (SAN).<\/p>\n
No date has been fixed for hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Governor-Elect of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, yesterday filed his defence to the petition by the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and outgoing Deputy Governor of Ekiti…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n