The Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko will finally know his fate tomorrow as the apex court will give its final judgement over the election which is being challenged by Chief Olusola Oke and defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), now All Progressives Congress (APC) , Chief Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN).
Governor Mimiko of the Labour Party (LP) had won the election while Oke and Akeredolu are challenging the outcome of the election.
But the decision to hear the matter was a departure from the Supreme Court’s tradition as the apex court had to break its yearly vacation temporarily to hear the case in order to beat the 60- day period allows by the 1999 Constitution (as amended) for the determination of appeals on election.
When the matter came up for hearing yesterday, lawyer to Mimiko, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, urged the 7-man panel to dismiss the appeals on the grounds that the case was baseless and could no longer be heard for want of jurisdiction.
Olanipekun further informed the apex court that the case had become a pure academic with the absence of the ACN, the platform on which Akeredolu contested in the election.
Lawyer to Oke, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, told the court that the election was invalid on the grounds that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) allegedly injected over 100,000 voters into the process stipulated by law.
Akeredolu’s lawyer, Mr. Wole Aina argued that Supreme Court was right in hearing the case during vacation on the grounds that it was a constitutional provision that the case must be heard within 60 days.
But the lawyer to INEC, Dr Onyechi Ikpeasu ,SAN, told the court that if there was any irregularity, the three contestants were the beneficiaries.
After listening to arguments by both parties, Justice Walter Onoghen fixed tomorrow for the final verdict on the matter.