The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has admitted error in Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki’s University of Ibadan (UI) certificate.
This is coming after the Action Democratic Party (ADP) and Iboi Emmanuel, the party’s governorship candidate asked the tribunal to nullify Obaseki’s election on grounds of submitting false information to the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to enable him to run for office.
However responding to the petition filed by the ADP and Emmanuel, the PDP said there was a mix-up in Obaseki’s admission and graduation year.
The party which blamed the error on a photocopier added that Obaseki observed the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme despite the mistake. It added that the petition was incompetent and statute-barred, describing it as a pre-election matter ‘which the tribunal could not entertain’.
PDP’s counsel, Adetunji Oyeyipo 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. 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”