The governorship candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) have filed a petition against the All Progressive Congress (APC) and Lagos State Governor-elect, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
Meanwhile, the PDP candidate, Abdul-Azeez Adediran, also known as Jandor, and the LP candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vigour, sought the tribunal to overturn Sanwo-return Olu’s and proclaim them the winners of the election.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the Lagos State Election Petition Tribunal received 48 applications in relation to the 2023 polls, which were held on February 25 and March 11.
The petitions were taped to the wall of the Rosaline Omotosho Courthouse in Ikeja, where the tribunal was meeting.
According to the petitions filed against Sanwo-Olu, four petitions were filed to dispute the governorship election.
The Allied People’s Movement (APM) and the Action People’s Party are two others (APP).
Rhodes-Vivour, who filed as a solo petitioner, offered three grounds for his case.
He said that Sanwo-Olu was not qualified to run in the election at the time it was held.
According to him, Sanwo-election Olu’s was illegitimate due to corrupt acts or a failure to comply with the terms of the Election Act 2022 and the constitution.
He went on to say that the governor-elect was not legitimately elected by a majority of the lawfully cast ballots.
Adediran and his party, the PDP, filed a petition in which they claimed that Sanwo-Olu and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, were not qualified to run for office at the time of the election.
Adediran further claimed that Rhodes-Vivour, who was proclaimed the winner by the first respondent, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had not been qualified to run at the time of the election.
According to NAN, INEC was the first respondent in Adediran’s appeal, with Sanwo-Olu, Hamzat, APC, Rhodes-Vivour, and LP identified as the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth respondents.
The PDP governorship candidate demanded that the APC and LP candidates be disqualified from the poll for failing to comply with the Electoral Act 2022 and INEC recommendations.
Adediran also requested that all votes cast for them in the election be considered invalid.
According to NAN, the tribunal received five complaints challenging elections to the House of Senate and 26 petitions disputing elections to the House of Representatives for the various constituencies in the state.
According to NAN, 13 petitions have been filed to dispute the elections to the State House of Assembly.
