The All Progressives Congress (APC) has withdrawn its petition challenging Governor Ademola Adeleke’s re-election in Osun State, days after the case was filed at the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.
Barrister Oluseyi Oyagbile, who filed the suit, said he received instructions from his client and APC leaders on Tuesday to discontinue the case. He confirmed that he had acted on those instructions.
“My client and leaders of APC reached out to me this morning to withdraw the petition I filed on their behalf, I have withdrawn the petition,” Oyagbile said.
Oyagbile said he requested written confirmation of the instruction before taking action. “Before I do so, I made them send WhatsApp messages to me giving the instruction so that it will not be a matter of controversy again,” he said.
The withdrawal followed an apparent disagreement within the APC over whether the party had authorised the challenge in the first place. A separate legal team led by Senior Advocate of Nigeria Abiodun Layonu had rejected the claim that the party was contesting Adeleke’s victory.
The two positions emerged after the tribunal displayed petitions filed by the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The APC case was registered as EPT/OS/GOV/01/2026, while the PDP filed EPT/OS/GOV/02/2026.
Oyagbile said the APC petition received the participation of Kayode Adereti, the party’s deputy governorship candidate, who signed it at the tribunal on Saturday in the presence of party leaders and executive members.
That account differs from the position attributed to Layonu’s team, which said the APC was not challenging the election result. Oyagbile’s subsequent withdrawal followed the instruction he said he received from the party.
The PDP’s separate case remains before the tribunal. Its petition continues independently of the APC’s decision to discontinue its suit.
The conflicting accounts leave the circumstances surrounding the APC filing as a central part of the development: one legal team says the petition did not represent the party’s position, while the lawyer who filed it says he acted for the APC and later received instructions to withdraw it.
