Is judicial adjudication in electoral matters new in Nigeria?, By Fola Aiyegbusi

Before the collapse of that republic on 31st December 1983, the presidential election of that year, even with a new National electoral commission chairman in the late Justice Ovie Whiskey, equally ended in the courts, as well as the governorship elections in the old Ondo, Oyo and Bendel states, with that of Ondo State being the most often referred to, due to the violence that resulted after the declaration of late Chief Omoboriowo as winner, before it was subsequently reversed in favour of the then Governor Adekunle Ajasin, from the tribunal headed by the late legal luminary, erudite judge of repute, and the first Nigerian Director of Law School, late Dr Justice Olakunle Orojo (CFR), to the Supreme court.

The late legal guru, Chief Richard Akinjide successfully canvassed in the court that those votes were two-thirds of the constitutionally required twenty five per cent of that thirteenth state, which qualified to be accepted as such.

When the late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo went to court, I was curious, as we saw then that his party didn’t have votes that were close enough to those of the winner, and he equally did not get the required twenty-five per cent of votes in two-thirds of the states, which was meant to be thirteen out of the then nineteen states of the federation.