A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has dismissed the certificate forgery case the All Progressives Congress, APC, and one of its members, Mr Williams Edobor, instituted against Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State.

Delivering judgment, the judge, Justice Ahmed Mohammed, held that the Plaintiffs failed to give credible evidence before the court to establish that Governor Obaseki forged either his O’level Certificate or the Degree Certificate that was awarded to him in 1979 by the University of Ibadan.

Justice Mohammed held that the allegation of forgery the Plaintiffs levelled against Mr Obaseki bordered on crime and therefore required to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

He further held that the discrepancies in the documents Governor Obaseki submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, were explained satisfactorily before the court.

Governor Obaseki contested and won the governorship election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in a bid to extend his stay in office by another four years.

After defecting from the APC, he got the PDP’s ticket and went ahead to defeat Ize-Iyamu for the second time to claim the governorship seat in what can be described as a dramatic switch of political parties.

Governor Obaseki had defeated Ize-Iyamu as the APC candidate in the 2016 governorship election while the latter was the PDP candidate.

Four years later, he secured 307,955 of the total votes, 84,336 more votes than Ize-Iyamu who got 223, 619 votes.

Ifeoma Nwovu

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