The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Edo state chapter says
the purported error in the certificate of Godwin Obaseki, the state governor,
was caused by a photocopier.
In a suit marked EPT/ED/GOV/01/2020, the Action Democratic
Party (ADP) and Iboi Emmanuel, the party’s governorship candidate, asked the
tribunal to nullify Obaseki’s election on the grounds that he submitted false
information to the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to enable him run
for office.
The petitioners alleged that in an affidavit deposed to and
presented to INEC in his form CF001 in 2016, “Obaseki submitted a certificate
purported to have been signed by the vice-chancellor and the registrar of the
university”.
“In the form EC9 submitted to INEC in 2020, Obaseki attached
an un-dated certificate with only one signatory purporting to be the signature
of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan,” the petitioners claimed.
“The petitioners will rely on oral and documentary evidence
to show that professor Tekena Tamuno who was vice-chancellor of the University
of Ibadan from December 1975 to November 1979 had not only died in 2015 but
could not also have signed a document purporting to be a document of the
University of Ibadan after his retirement and death.”
Responding to the allegations, Adetunji Oyeyipo, PDP
counsel, said: “There was a misstatement in mixing up the year of graduation
with the year of admission.”
“While filling the forms for the election in 2016, Obaseki
inadvertently and mistakenly wrote 1976 in a portion of the form for the year
of the graduation which was the year of his admission into the University of
Ibadan.”
“At the time Obaseki
was completing his form CF001 in 2016, he deposed to an affidavit stating that
he had misplaced the originals of all of his certificates while changing
offices with the intention to apply for a re-issuance if his certificates.”
“Subsequently, before Obaseki submitted his Form EC9 in
2020, the original certificate issued by University of Ibadan was eventually
found which has the signatures of the Vice-Chancellor and Registrar of the
University.”
“The original certificate was issued in A5 size; however, in
order for the photocopy of the certificate to be attached to the form CF001,
the size was reduced to A4 and in the process, leaving out some information on
the certificate.”
On the contention over Obaseki’s participation in the
National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme, the party said the matter is a
pre-election issue which the tribunal cannot entertain.
The PDP also challenged the jurisdiction of the tribunal to
hear the matter on the grounds that it is statute-barred since the issues
raised relate to facts from the 2016 governorship election.
“The tribunal lacks the jurisdiction to entertain the
petition for reason that same is statute barred because the issues raised by
the petitioner, according to the PDP are averments which are not relevant for
the purpose of determining the petition at the Election Petition Tribunal, as
the said averments relate to facts concerning the previous election conducted
in 2016 and that since the election under dispute is that of September 2020 and
as such should be dismissed,” Oyeyipo said.
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com