The Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja has declared as winner Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate in the last year’s governorship election in the state, Ademola Adeleke.

It held that the All Progressives Congress and its candidate, Gboyega Oyetola was not validly returned.

The tribunal also declared rerun Osun governorship election on September 27, 2018 in seven polling units as illegal.

It stated the exercise was borne out of an illegal cancellation of results in the polling units during the September 22, 2018 original poll.

The Tribunal said the Returning Officers who declared the results cancelled lacked the power to do it.

The Peoples Democratic Party and its governorship candidate, Ademola Adeleke, petitioned the tribunal to declare Adeleke the governor-elect having polled the highest lawful votes.

The three-man tribunal said the PDP candidate won the election on the first ballot, noting that the rerun election which saw the APC upturning the votes and was declared as the winner, was illegal.

At the close of ballot on September 19, 2018, the PDP led the polls with 353 votes, after receiving 254,698 votes while the APC candidate got 254,345votes.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the election inconclusive after reasoning that the number of cancelled votes was far more than the margin of lead by the PDP candidate.