The West African Examination Council (WAEC), which was summoned by the Lagos State Governorship Election Tribunal to offer the certificate of Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has failed to do so.
According to Information Nigeria, the court issued the order based on the request of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate Abdulazeez Adediran, who claimed that Sanwo-Olu lied on oath in his 2023 form EC9 by presenting a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2019.
Jandor questioned the veracity of Sanwo-Olu’s WAEC result’s sudden emergence and submission to the verification portal, and he summoned WAEC to appear in court and offer the stated 1981 certificate under oath.
A study of Sanwo-Olu’s 2019 Form CF001 revealed that the WAEC statement of result he claimed he sat for in 1981 at Ijebu Ife Community Grammar School in Ogun state was discovered to be incorrect on the WAEC result verification portal.
“While responding to the Jandor/PDP petition, Governor Sanwo-Olu did not attach the purported WAEC certificate to counter Jandor/PDP claims, but the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the fourth respondent attached a printout from the same WAEC portal, which previously confirmed Sanwo-Olu’s purported WAEC result to be non-existent.”
“However, a check on the WAEC website revealed that in the event of the loss of the WAEC certificate, the council issues an attestation in the form of a CTC, but none of such were issued by WAEC to ascertain Babajide Sanwoolu’s claim, thus the court’s order that WAEC submit its back end-server and other information technology infrastructure for forensic analysis.” “This exercise will reveal the date and time the unexpected appearance of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s purported 1981 WAEC result was uploaded, as the same result was not there as of APRIL 7th, 2023 when Jandor/PDP filed their petition at the tribunal,” the statement stated in part.
During cross-examination, the WAEC representative stated, “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.”
WAEC, according to the witness, did not make counterpart copies of candidates’ certificates or keep duplicate copies of candidates’ certificates.
When asked how a WAEC candidate might reclaim his or her lost certificate in the event of a certificate loss, the witness responded by approaching WAEC with documentation or an attestation letter.
When asked why he didn’t bring up the attestation for Sanwo-Olu, he had no response.
During further questioning, the counsel asked the WAEC witness if a difference in names could indicate that such results do not belong to the same person, to which he replied, “most likely.”
Meanwhile, the tribunal issued a new subpoena to WAEC, directing it to turn over its result verification back-end server and other information technology infrastructure for forensic examination in the presence of the court and all parties.
Mismob Media