West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has failed present the original certificate of the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu to the Lagos State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.
As a result, the court ordered the WAEC to submit the back-end server and other information on the technology infrastructure of the result-checking portal for forensic analysis of the Sanwo-Olu results.
The court issued the order following a petition by the Peoples Democratic Party’s, PDP governorship candidate, Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran stating that Sanwo-Olu lied during his oath-taking in the 2023 EC9 form in 2019, which was presented by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
The forged certificate was presented to INEC according to a statement obtained by newsmen on Monday.
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It stated that a review of Sanwo-Olu’s CF001 form for 2019 revealed that the WAEC result statement he claimed to have attended Ijebu Ife Community Grammar School in Ogun State in 1981 was declared invalid on the WAEC result verification portal.
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The statement read in part:
“While responding to Jandor/ PDP petition, Governor Sanwo-Olu didn’t attach the purported WAEC certificate to counter Jandor/PDP claims, but the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the 4th respondent attached a printout from the same WAEC portal which hitherto confirmed Sanwo-Olu’s purported WAEC result to be non-existent.”
Adediran questioned the integrity of the Sanwo-Olu WAEC results that appeared and uploaded on the verification portal and called on WAEC to produce the said 1981 WAEC certificate under oath in court.
A WAEC representative who appeared in court last week to testify as a sworn witness said:
“I am unable to tender the duplicate copy of the May/June 1981 G.C.E. ‘O’ Level certificate of one Sanwo-Olu Babajide Olusola.”
The witness added that WAEC did not submit copies of the candidates’ certificates and did not keep copies of the candidates’ certificates.
The statement again read:
“However, a check on the WAEC website revealed that in the event of loss of the WAEC certificate, the council issues an attestation in the form of a CTC, but none of such was issued by WAEC to ascertain the claim of Babajide Sanwo-Olu, hence the order of the court that WAEC should submit it back end-server and other information technology infrastructure for forensic analysis. This exercise will expose the date and time the sudden appearance of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s purported 1981 WAEC result was uploaded, as the same result wasn’t there as of APRIL 7th, 2023 when Jandor/PDP filed their petition at the tribunal.”
