A fresh dispute has emerged within the All Progressives Congress (APC) over a petition challenging Governor Ademola Adeleke’s re-election in Osun State, with the lawyer who filed the case insisting that it was authorised and signed by the party’s deputy governorship candidate, Kayode Adereti.
The dispute followed the display of the petition at the Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Osogbo on Monday, a day after reports that no candidate had challenged Adeleke’s victory before the 21-day deadline expired.
The petition, marked EPT/OS/GOV/01/2026, lists APC governorship candidate Munirudeen Bola Oyebamiji and the APC as petitioners, while Adeleke, the Accord Party and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are named as respondents.
But senior members of the APC legal team have disowned the petition, saying neither the party nor Oyebamiji authorised its filing.
The lawyer who filed the petition, Oluseyi Oyagbile, has rejected that position, saying Adereti personally instructed him to commence the case and signed the petition.
The competing claims have raised questions over who authorised the APC petition, whether Adereti had the authority to initiate the action on behalf of the party and its governorship ticket, and how the tribunal will treat the conflicting positions.
Lawyer says Oyebamiji’s running mate signed petition
Oyagbile, whose legal team filed the petition, said Adereti personally appeared and signed the document.
According to the lawyer, he accepted the brief on the understanding that Adereti had the legal standing to initiate an election petition because he contested the election alongside Oyebamiji on a joint ticket.
Oyagbile also rejected the suggestion that he was required to obtain instructions from another group of lawyers described as the APC legal team before filing the case.
He said he was unaware of any requirement that a particular group of lawyers must be consulted before a party or candidate could brief counsel in an election dispute.
Oyagbile maintained that there was nothing irregular about the petition and said Adereti personally appeared before him to sign it.
The lawyer’s account introduces a significant distinction into the controversy: while some APC lawyers say the party and its candidate did not authorise the petition, counsel responsible for the filing says he received instructions directly from Oyebamiji’s running mate.
The available reports do not independently establish the internal authority arrangements within the APC that would determine whether Adereti could validly instruct counsel in the circumstances.
APC legal team disowns petition
The controversy began after Dr Abiodun Layonu, SAN, said the APC legal team was unaware of the petition and that neither the party nor Oyebamiji authorised its filing.
Layonu said the legal team was shocked by the appearance of the document and rejected it as a petition filed on behalf of the APC and its governorship candidate.
Another member of the legal team, Muideen Adeoye, similarly said the party did not file any petition before the tribunal.
Adeoye said the legal team had reached an agreement with the party hierarchy not to challenge the result at the tribunal.
He described the appearance of the notice at the tribunal as strange and said any petition filed in the names of the APC and Oyebamiji was done without the approval of the party leadership or the candidate.
Adekunle Adegoke, SAN, another senior member of the legal team, also told The PUNCH that the lawyers had met Oyebamiji and other party leaders after the election and agreed not to challenge the result.
Adegoke said the decision was influenced by a desire to de-escalate political tension and allow peace to prevail in the state.
The conflicting positions mean that two separate accounts now exist concerning the authority behind the petition.
The APC legal team says it was not authorised.
The lawyer who filed it says he was properly instructed by Adereti, who, according to him, personally signed the petition.
Dispute follows Oyebamiji’s acceptance of election result
The controversy is particularly significant because Oyebamiji publicly accepted the outcome of the August 15 election and congratulated Adeleke before the petition appeared at the tribunal.
On August 29, Oyebamiji said he accepted the result and congratulated Adeleke, although he expressed concern about violence and deaths recorded during the election.
He also said his camp would continue to pursue justice and fairness through lawful and constitutional means where legitimate concerns existed.
The statement appeared to signal that Oyebamiji would not challenge Adeleke’s victory.
The following week, reports said the 21-day period for filing election petitions had expired without any challenge to the result.
The PUNCH reported on September 7 that the tribunal had received no petition during the 21-day filing window, while The Star similarly reported that none of the unsuccessful candidates had approached the tribunal before the deadline.
The subsequent appearance of petitions at the tribunal therefore represented a major change in the post-election situation.
Tribunal displays two petitions
The APC dispute is occurring alongside a separate petition attributed to Adebayo Olugbenga Adedamola, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the August 15 election.
The tribunal displayed the two petitions on its notice board in Osogbo on Monday.
The APC case is marked EPT/OS/GOV/01/2026, while the PDP case is EPT/OS/GOV/02/2026. The tribunal secretary, Pefe Belemore, confirmed that petitions challenging the election had been filed.
Adedamola has also denied authorising the petition bearing his name, according to reports.
The PDP candidate told TVC that neither he nor his lawyer had instituted a case against Adeleke and that he was unaware of the document displayed at the tribunal.
That means the controversy surrounding the APC petition is part of a broader and unusual development in which the tribunal has displayed petitions attributed to opposition candidates while questions have been raised by some of those named in the documents about their authorisation.
What the APC petition seeks to challenge
The APC petition is directed at the result of the August 15 governorship election, in which Adeleke was declared the winner.
Adeleke, who contested on the platform of the Accord party, secured 511,067 votes, while Oyebamiji of the APC finished second with 444,815 votes.
The petition names Oyebamiji and the APC as petitioners and Adeleke, Accord and INEC as respondents.
Reports said the petitions displayed at the tribunal were dated September 5, 2026.
However, the available reports reviewed do not provide enough independently verified detail about the substantive grounds contained in the APC petition to safely characterise its allegations beyond saying that it challenges Adeleke’s re-election.
Legal question now shifts to authority behind filing
The central unresolved issue is whether the person who instructed the lawyer and signed the petition had the requisite authority to institute the case in the names of Oyebamiji and the APC.
Oyagbile’s position is that Adereti, having contested the election as Oyebamiji’s running mate on the APC ticket, had the locus to initiate the action.
The APC legal team’s position is that the party leadership and its recognised legal team decided not to challenge the election and did not authorise the petition.
Those positions are not necessarily resolved merely by establishing that a document was signed or submitted.
The question of authority could therefore become important to the proceedings if the dispute is formally raised before the tribunal.
For now, the available reports establish that the petition exists, that it was displayed by the tribunal, that it names Oyebamiji and the APC as petitioners, and that Oyagbile says Adereti signed and instructed him to file it.
They also establish that senior APC lawyers have publicly denied authorising the filing.
What remains unresolved from the available reporting is whether Oyebamiji personally authorised the petition, whether the APC leadership authorised it, the precise authority under which Adereti acted, and how the tribunal will determine any challenge to the petition’s competence or validity.
The development has consequently transformed what initially appeared to be a straightforward post-election tribunal challenge into a dispute over the authority behind the APC’s own petition.
For Adeleke, the immediate implication is that his re-election is now facing a tribunal challenge on paper, although the circumstances surrounding the APC filing remain contested.
The tribunal’s eventual handling of those competing claims will determine whether the petition proceeds as a substantive challenge to the August 15 election result.
