FASANMI JCA (Delivering the Lead Judgment): This is an appeal against the ruling of the Governorship and Legislative Houses Election Petition Tribunal sitting at Oshogbo, delivered on 1December 2007. Briefly on 14 April 2007, election was held in respect of Ejigbo Local Government Constituency of the Osun State House of Assembly. The 4th respondent was declared as the winner of the election by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents. The appellant/petitioner who was a candidate at the election on the platform of the Progressive Peoples’Alliance (PPA) presented an election petition. The ground of the petition was that the petitioner was validly nominated but was unlawfully excluded from the election.
The 4th respondent who was the candidate of the Action Congress and who was returned as elected, filed a notice of preliminary objectiondated 26November 2007 praying the tribunal to strike out the petition on the following grounds:
That the petition is incompetent That the petitioner has no locu…