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Layi Olanrewaju, Ilorin
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has dismissed reports that it has been asked to produce the West African Examination Council (WAEC) certificate of the Kwara State governor-elect, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.
Counsel to INEC, Rowland Otaru (SAN), told reporters in Ilorin, the state capital, yesterday, that, at no time did the state Governorship Petition Tribunal ordered the body to produce a document that is clearly a public record.
“The tribunal did not at anytime ordered INEC to produce the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) certificate of Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq.
“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 documents the governor-elect tendered met the requirements of the law,” Otaru said.
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. INEC added that the documents 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.”
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate Abdulrazak Atunwa are challenging the genuineness or otherwise of the WAEC certificate of AbdulRazaq at the tribunal.
PDP Counsel and its governorship candidate, Kingsley Odey, did not object to tendering the document.
Odey told the court that he intends to call up maximum of five witnesses, adding that one will be a document expert while the other will be subpoenaed from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) office.
