Certificate Forgery: Court to Decide Obaseki’s Fate

Certificate Forgery: Court to Decide Obaseki’s Fate.

Following the alleged certificate forgery case filed against the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, by the All Progressives Congress and a chieftain of the party, Edobor Williams, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja will deliver judgment on Saturday.

Justice Ahmed Mohammed, the presiding judge, fixed Saturday after lawyers to both parties adopted their final written addresses.

The counsel to the Edo State Governor, Ken Mozia (SAN) and the Peoples Democratic Party, Razaq Isenalumhe, after their final addresses, urged the court to dismiss the suit.

While Isenalumhe also prayed the court to award substantial cost against the plaintiffs, Mozia prayed the court to hold that the plaintiffs failed woefully to prove their case.

Counsel for the Independent National Electoral Commission, Murktar Bawa, said in his submission, “We did not file any process in this suit and have consistently remained neutral. We urge the court to decide the case one way or the other in accordance with the processes before it.”

The plaintiffs had in the suit marked: FHC/B/CS/74/2020, asked the court to, among others, disqualify Obaseki as the candidate of the PDP in the September 19, 2020 governorship election.

APC and Williams had stated that the governorship candidate of the PDP in the September 19 election forged his first-degree certificate, which he claimed to have obtained from the University of Ibadan in 1979 and which he submitted to INEC as part of his educational qualifications.

The plaintiffs had claimed that a photocopy of the degree certificate attached to the nomination form that Obaseki submitted to INEC did not contain the signature of the Registrar of the university and the date it was issued.

But Obaseki in his defence said the Registrar’s signature and date of the issue were cut off from the photocopies of his certificate submitted to INEC because the person who made the copies used A4, which is smaller than the size of the original certificate.

Obaseki called three witnesses to support his case, while the plaintiffs called six witnesses in all and tendered documents in support of their case,

However, the PDP and INEC did not call in any witness.