Edo guber: Fresh hurdle as ADP candidate challenges Obaseki, PDP at Tribunal in Benin

The Action Democratic Party (ADP) Governorship Candidate, Iboi Lucky Emmanuel, has challenged the election of Godwin Obaseki as Governor of Edo State.

The petition was filed on Monday, the day the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, formally announced that he had decided not to proceed against Obaseki’s victory at the Tribunal.

The ADP candidate submitted his petition at the Election Petitions Tribunal in Benin City, Edo State on Monday, citing a number of grounds upon which Obaseki should be disqualified.

The petitioners alleged that the University degree certificate submitted by the 3rd respondent, Godwin Noghehase Obaseki, issued by the University of Ibadan was defective. In an affidavit deposed to and presented to INEC in his Form CF001 in 2016, Governor Obaseki submitted a certificate purported to have been signed by the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar of the University. In the Form EC9 submitted to INEC in 2020, Obaseki attached an undated certificate with only one signatory purporting to be the signature of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan.

He also alleged that the signature of the Vice Chancellor who signed the Degree Certificate being presented by Governor Godwin Obaseki died in 2015 after retirement for a long time and couldn’t have signed a re-issued certificate in 2020. “The petitioners will rely on oral and documentary evidence to show that Professor Tekena Tamuno who was Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan from December 1975 to November 1979 had not only died in 2015, but could not also have signed a document purporting to be a document of the University of Ibadan after his retirement and death.

The ADP candidate also argued that the 3rd respondent was not qualified to contest the governorship election held in September 20th and the votes credited to him were null and void and of no effect and value.