In the aftermath of Edo governorship election of 19 September 2020, in which Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki, PDP, was declared the winner, five political parties have filed petitions at the Election Tribunal challenging his victory. The five political parties challenging the victory of Obaseki are Action Alliance (AA), Action Peoples Party (APP), Allied People Movement (APM), New Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and Action Democratic Party (ADP). The strongest challenger is the 36-year-old ADP candidate, Emmanuel Iboi, who came third in the election with 2,374 votes. Before going through grounds for ADP and Iboi's petition, let me first recall precedential judgment delivered by the Supreme Court on the Bayelsa Governorship election on Thursday, 13 February 2020.
Prior to the 16 November 2019, Gubernatorial election in Bayelsa, PDP had filed a High Court Suit seeking to disqualify Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo from contesting the election as an APC deputy Governor candidate to David Lyon. The PDP had alleged that the APC Deputy Governor's contestant name was written as Degi Biobaragha in his primary School Certificate, his secondary School education bore Adegi Biobarakuma as his name and his university education had Degi Biobarakuma as his name. Furthermore, the result from his MBA certificate had Degi Biobarakuma Wangagha as his name. On the basis of the aforementioned, the High Court disqualified Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo from contesting the election as a deputy governor of which he appealed to the Court of Appeal. At the Appeal Court, Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo produced documents and affidavits of change of names at every stage which the court found genuine and thereby nullified the High Court decision. David Lyon contested the election on a joint ticket with Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo as his deputy and won. However, PDP appealed to the Supreme Court that Degi-Eremionyo was not qualified to contest in the election as a deputy governor on the ground of his different names in his certificates. The Supreme Court could not hear the case until after 16 November Governorship election and on Thursday, 13 February 2020, Justice Mary Odili led Supreme Court panel held that the nomination form Degi Eremienyo submitted to INEC for the purpose of November 16, 2019, governorship election in Bayelsa with regards to different names in his certificates constituted false information. Therefore, the Supreme Court ordered the certificate of return be withdrawn, by the INEC, from the governor and his deputy elect and be issued instead to the candidate with the second highest votes in the 16 November 2019 Bayelsa election. Now let's examine the coming replication of Bayelsa gubernatorial election petition's judgment in Edo state.
The Action Democratic Party (ADP) and its Governorship candidate in the 19 September 2020 election are claiming that in the affidavit deposed to and presented to INEC in his CF001 in 2016, Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki submitted a certificate purported to have been signed by the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar of University of Ibadan. But in the Form EC9 submitted to the INEC in 2020, Obaseki attached an undated certificate with only one signatory purporting to be the signature of the Vice Chancellor University of Ibadan. Professor Tekena Tamuno was the Vice Chancellor of University of Ibadan from December 1975 to November 1979 when he retired and who died in 2015. The certificate being presented to INEC in 2020 by Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki is said to have been a re-issued certificate in 2020 signed by Professor Tekena Tamuno, five years after his death which is an obvious impossibility. In view of the above facts, the ADP and Emmanuel Iboi are claiming that Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki presented a forged/or a false certificate to INEC in violation of Section 182 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and therefore was not qualified to contest 2020 gubernatorial election. Thus, they are demanding that the election be nullified and voided for a new one to be held. Questions they are asking the election tribunal to resolve are : Can a candidate buy nomination forms from two political parties in the same election circle (a question calling on the court to delegitimatize political whoredom)?; Can a student be admitted for University studies with just three credits without mathematics and English (as Obaseki claimed to have done in getting admitted to University of Ibadan)?; Can a political party shift the dates of the sales of its nomination forms (as PDP did) after giving the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, and the public a date?; Can a political party extend the date of its primaries with just five days' notice to INEC, (as PDP did) when the Electoral Act stipulates seven days?; Can a dead and buried Vice Chancellor sign a student's result and date it after his death? Most importantly, if any of the issues above are resolved in the negative, the question that follows is, can the PDP be said to have fielded a candidate in the Edo State governorship election? While waiting for the outcome of ADP election petition, I wish to remark that Nigerians in general love to be big which is why they are very title sick. The minimum qualification required of anyone contesting for an elective position in Nigeria, according to the Constitution, is for the candidate to communicate fluently in English language to the satisfaction of INEC. Nevertheless, Nigerian politicians insist that they must possess sophisticated academic qualification and it doesn't matter if it is imaginary, honorary or fake. Otherwise, the job of a Governor does not require academic degree and Obaseki's contest could have been guaranteed, at least with regards to educational qualification, if he had supported his nomination forms submitted to INEC with an affidavit that he could communicate fluently in English language.
S. Kadiri
No comments:
Post a Comment