National Telescope national telescope newspaper
The Independent National Electoral Commission Wednesday dismissed reports that it has been asked to produce the WAEC certificate of the Kwara State Governor-elect AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.
“The tribunal did not at anytime order INEC to produce the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) certificate of Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq,” Counsel to INEC, Rowland Otaru (SAN) said in Ilorin.
“The governor-elect has pleaded his certificate, which is very genuine. There is nothing like falsification of result or whatever. They are there. They are public records. It is not something to be hidden.
The opposition People’s Democratic Party and its governorship candidate Abdulrazak Atunwa are challenging the genuineness or otherwise of the WAEC certificate of AbdulRazaq at the tribunal.
Otaru, however, said at no time did the state governorship tribunal order the commission to produce a document that is clearly a public record.
Earlier, at the tribunal’s pre-hearing session, the commission tendered two documents (Forms ECAD and ECAE) which contained the results of the elections across the 16 local government areas and declaration of results for the office of the governor of the state.
The electoral body added that the documents provided at the tribunal affirmed that AbdulRazaq was the winner of the election.
Otaru told the tribunal that “Those are the documents we have now at this pre-hearing session. Every other document will come in during the real trial.”
Counsel to PDP and its governorship candidate, Kingsley Odey, did not object to the tendering of the document.
Odey told the tribunal that he intends to call up maximum of five witnesses.
He added that one will be a document expert while the other will be subpoenaed from the WAEC office.
(The Guardian)
