The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Shittu Ibrahim, has been declared the winner of Saturday’s Saki West State Constituency rerun election for Oyo State House of Assembly.
The rerun was conducted in Odo-osun unit 007 in Ogidigbo area and Ogbalanja polling unit 019 in Sepeteri/Bapon registration area.
The results of the rerun at the two polling units indicated that Mr. Shittu polled 290 votes while Okedoyin had 330 votes.
Announcing the results, the INEC Returning officer, Professor Olusola Oyewo said Mr. Shittu Ibrahim polled 13, 850 votes to defeat Mr. Julius Okedoyin of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who had 13, 670 votes.
Mr. Shittu was declared winner of the March 18, 2023 election by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), but Mr Okedoyin and PDP approached the election petition tribunal, to challenge the results, claiming irregularities, overvoting, and non-compliance.
In a unanimous judgement delivered in September 2023, a three-member tribunal led by Justice Jubril Anaja, nullified Mr. Shittu’s election.
The tribunal held that over 1,000 voters were disenfranchised, while the margin of victory between the winner and petitioner was 270 votes.
In an attempt to overturn the tribunal’s decision, Mr. Shittu appealed the judgement and in November 2023, the Court of Appeal upheld the tribunal’s judgement and ordered a rerun in the two polling units.
