The legal team of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Osun State has disowned a petition reportedly filed in the party’s name to challenge the victory of Governor Ademola Adeleke in the August 15 governorship election.
One of the senior members of the legal team, Adekunle Adegoke, said neither the APC nor its governorship candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, authorised the filing of any case before the Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.
Adegoke, who made the disclosure on Monday, said the legal team had recommended that Oyebamiji should not challenge the election outcome after assessing the circumstances surrounding the poll.
According to him, “the lawyers met the APC candidate and other party leaders shortly after the election to examine the available options and determine the appropriate course of action.”
He explained that the decision to stay away from the tribunal was intentional, noting that the lawyers considered the need to ease political tension and preserve peace in the state.
“Right from the second day after the election, the legal team, led by about four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, advised our client that, in the circumstances, the best course of action was not to go to the tribunal,” Adegoke said.
The senior lawyer noted that members of the team had handled election litigation for several years and understood the legal grounds upon which an electoral outcome could be contested.
“The legal team has been in existence for more than seven years. Whenever we go into an election, and the results are being announced, we know where there are loopholes and what we can challenge,” he said.
Adegoke stressed, however, that choosing not to pursue litigation should not be interpreted as an admission that the election was devoid of irregularities.
“It is not that the election was entirely free or that there were no malpractices. There may have been valid grounds to challenge the result, but we decided to allow the populace to rest,” he said.
He also pointed to Oyebamiji’s decision to publicly congratulate Adeleke after the election, saying the action was voluntary and therefore difficult to reconcile with any subsequent authorisation for another person to challenge the result on his behalf.
“Our client willingly, without pressure or duress, congratulated Governor Adeleke. Do you now think it would be legitimate, or honourable, for Asiwaju Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji to turn around and authorise the filing of a petition?” Adegoke asked.
Reacting specifically to the documents presented before the tribunal, Adegoke said they did not originate from the recognised APC legal team and were not sanctioned by either the party or its candidate.
“I want it to be on record that the APC legal team has denounced the bundle of papers filed by some individuals masquerading as APC lawyers. It was not authorised by the APC as a party or by its candidate,” he said.
Another APC chieftain, Adebayo Adedamola, also denied having any role in proceedings seeking to overturn Adeleke’s victory.
“I am not involved in any petition before the Election Petition Tribunal. I already endorsed Governor Ademola Adeleke as our candidate. So, there is no cause for us to now go and file any petition against the governor,” Adedamola said.
The development followed the appearance of two petitions at the Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Osogbo on Monday.
The documents, separately attributed to the Osun APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, were displayed despite earlier reports that the tribunal had not received any petition before the expiration of the constitutional 21-day period for filing election petitions on Saturday.
One of the notices, identified as EPT/Os/Gov/01/2026, listed Oyebamiji and the APC as petitioners, while the second, numbered EPT/Os/Gov/02/2026, named the PDP as the petitioner.
The emergence of the petitions has therefore triggered questions over their origin and authorisation, particularly following the public rejection by members of the APC’s legal team and other party figures.
