SDP says Oyebanji’s victory rape of democracy, APC hails judgement

The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State and the opposition Social Democratic Party, on Saturday, differed over the Supreme Court judgment which validated the victory of Governor Biodun Oyebanji in the June 18, 2022, governorship election.

The Supreme Court had in a judgment delivered on Thursday validated Oyebanji’s victory in the election and dismissed the appeal filed by his SDP opponent, Segun Oni.

The state Publicity Secretary of the APC, Segun Dipe, on behalf of the state Chairman, Mr Paul Omotoso, said, “The back-to-back legal victory recorded from the election petitions tribunal to the apex court was not accidental, but a confirmation of the people’s acceptance of both the party and the governor, which culminated in the landslide victory recorded at the poll and which cannot be taken for granted at any point of the present administration.

“The legal victory, which is landslide and total in the Ekiti governorship matter, is evidence enough that Segun Oni and his party had selfishly embarked on a fruitless legal misadventure to set Ekiti State backward and burning.”

But the SDP state Chairman, Dr Dele Ekunola, according to a statement by the party’s state Public Relations Officer, Gani Salau, during the party leadership’s visit to Oni, described the apex court verdict as a “rape of democracy, which will go a long way in the annals of the history of Nigeria as one of the worst judgments pronounced with emotions and recklessness as the grounds of appeal and prayers before his lordships.”