Adeleke vs Oyetola: Intersociety berates Supreme Court over ruling on Osun election

International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has described the recent ruling by the Supreme Court on the Osun State governorship election petition as a recipe for anarchy.

Intersociety declared that the “moment the Supreme Court ends up adopting juridical technicalities, irrelevancies and biased opinions or hearsay evidence as its core modus operandi, then the country’s democracy and rule of law are doomed.”

Reacting to the apex court’s ruling in a statement yesterday, the civil rights group urged the court to avoid plunging the country’s democracy into perdition and complex extremism.

While noting that tyranny and authoritarianism could gradually emerge as new governance styles from judgements skewed by technicalities, Intersociety maintained that the apex court’s “ruling on Friday, July 5, 2019, with respect to the Osun State governorship poll is nothing short of a Cross of Calvary judgement lacking elements of fair justice.”

The statement signed by Obianuju Igboeli (head of Civil Liberties and Rule of Law Programme) and Emeka Umeagbalasi (Intersociety board chairman) pointed out that the majority judgement “did not provide answers as to whether it is democratically correct for an electoral umpire and a ruling party/government that appointed it to engage, with reckless abandon, in the militarisation, intimidation and suppression of a voting population and their votes.”

The group regretted that the Supreme Court appeared to have been taken over by “experts in jurisprudential and juridical technicalities, irrelevancies and biased opinions.”