APC legal team disowns petition challenging Adeleke’s victory

The legal team of the All Progressives Congress in Osun State has disowned a petition challenging the victory of Governor Ademola Adeleke in the August 15 governorship election.
One of the senior lawyers on the APC legal team, Adekunle Adegoke, SAN, said the petition was not authorised by either the party or its governorship candidate, Bola Oyebamiji.
Adegoke disclosed this in an interview, explaining that the legal team had advised Oyebamiji and other party leaders against challenging the election result at the tribunal.
According to him, the decision was taken after the team reviewed the election and identified areas that could potentially have formed grounds for a legal challenge.
He, however, said the team chose not to pursue litigation in order to reduce political tension and allow peace to prevail in the state.
Adegoke said Oyebamiji subsequently accepted the advice and congratulated Adeleke after the results were announced.
He questioned how the APC candidate could have authorised a petition after voluntarily congratulating the governor and agreeing with the legal team’s decision not to proceed to the tribunal.
The lawyer described the petition as unauthorised and said the APC legal team had rejected documents filed by individuals claiming to be acting as lawyers for the party.
He maintained that the legal team had been working with the APC for several years and had examined the election results and circumstances surrounding the poll before reaching its decision.
However, notices of two separate petitions challenging the outcome of the election were displayed on Monday at the premises of the Osun State High Court in Osogbo, where the election petition tribunal is located.
One of the petitions lists Oyebamiji and the APC as petitioners, while Adeleke, the Accord Party and the Independent National Electoral Commission are respondents.
The petition, numbered EPT/Os/Gov/01/2026, is among the cases listed before the tribunal.
A second petition, numbered EPT/Os/Gov/02/2026, lists the Peoples Democratic Party as the petitioner, with INEC, the Accord Party and Adeleke as respondents.
The notices were signed by the Secretary of the tribunal, Belemo Diete-Spiff.
The development has created a dispute over the authority behind the APC-linked petition, with the party’s legal team insisting that it did not approve any challenge to Adeleke’s victory.
The August 15 election was contested by 15 political parties, while the PDP did not field a candidate in the poll.