Former Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani, has appealed to politicians and lawyers involved in the just-concluded Osun State governorship election to accept the outcome of the poll and avoid making the election outcome a subject of litigation.
Sani made the appeal in a post on his official X account on Tuesday, urging political actors to put the election behind them and begin preparations for the 2027 general elections.
He wrote: “My own appeal is that nobody should go to court over the Osun election. I take God beg lawyers especially big big SANs, and politicians to let the matter rest. Let’s focus on 2027. For the lawyers since you only speak Latin, Noli ad iudicium Adire.”
The appeal comes amid growing indications that some of the political parties involved in the election are not completely satisfied with the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Recall INEC had declared the incumbent Governor Ademola Adeleke, who contested on the platform of the Accord party, winner of the August 15 election after he polled 511,067 votes to defeat the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, who scored 444,815 votes. Adeleke won in 19 of the state’s 30 local government areas, while Oyebamiji won 11. The 66,252-vote margin gave Adeleke a second term in office.
However, the outcome has continued to generate reactions from both the Accord and APC camps, with questions being raised over the figures recorded in some areas.
NAIJAONPOINT reported that the Chairman of the Election Surveillance and Voter Education Committee of the Imole Campaign Council, Yemi Lawal, during an interview with Western Spring Television on Monday, said the Accord campaign team had expected Adeleke to win by a much wider margin.
Lawal said the campaign council’s internal calculations had projected a victory margin of between 150,000 and 200,000 votes, adding that the difference between its expectation and the margin announced by INEC would be subjected to further scrutiny. He said the party would analyse the results and challenge areas where it believed “certain issues arose.”
The position of the APC has also raised the possibility of a post-election legal battle.
Speaking on Arise Television on Monday, the Director-General of the APC Governorship Campaign Committee, Oluwole Oke, said the party did not agree with INEC’s declaration and was not ready to immediately congratulate Adeleke.
Oke said the APC campaign team was conducting a comprehensive review of the election and had directed its agents to submit copies of relevant result sheets for scrutiny. He maintained that the party believed Adeleke did not score the highest number of valid votes, despite INEC’s declaration.
“We do not agree with the declaration of INEC. That’s our position for now. We believe he did not score the highest valid votes,” Oke said, adding that the party would make its position known after completing its review.
It is against this backdrop that Sani appealed to the parties, politicians and lawyers to resist the temptation of prolonging the election through litigation.
The former senator also took a light-hearted swipe at lawyers, particularly Senior Advocates of Nigeria, by using the Latin expression “Noli ad iudicium adire,” which translates roughly to “do not go to court.”
Sani’s intervention comes at a time when political attention is l beginning to shift towards the 2027 general elections, even as the dust raised by the Osun governorship election continues to settle.
Hafsoh Isiaq is a graduate of Linguistics. An avid writer committed to creative, high-quality research and news reportage. She has considerable experience in writing and reporting across a variety of platforms including print and online.
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