An Osun State High sitting in Osogbo, the state capital, on Wednesday, August 8, 2018, dismissed a suit challenging the eligibility of Senator Ademola Adeleke as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the September 22 governorship election in the state.
It would be recalled that the plaintiffs, Rasheed Olabayo and Oluwaseun Idowu, who are members of the PDP in Osun had alleged that Adeleke did not possess Secondary School Certificate and urged the court to restrain PDP from presenting him to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as candidate of the party.
They also asked the court to restrain INEC from accepting Adeleke from PDP as its candidate on the basis that the Senator was not qualified, quoting Section 177 (d) of the 1999 Constitution.
In his ruling Wednesday, the court presided over by Justice David Oladimeji noted that the claims of the plaintiffs that Adeleke did not possess school certificate cannot disqualify him from contesting the election because the constitution did not state that a candidate for the office of the governor must possess a certificate.
Justice Oladimeji stressed that the constitution only stipulated that the candidate must be educated up to secondary school level and that with the acknowledgement of the plaintiffs that the Senator attended Ede Grammar School, the senator was deemed to be educated up to the stipulated level.
