A certificate forgery case filed at a Federal High Court in Abuja against Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has on Saturday been dismissed by the presiding judge.
While delivering his judgement, Justice Ahmed Mohammed said the suit filed by the All Progressives Congress and one of its members, Edobor Williams, failed to prove that Obaseki forged his academic certificates that he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission before the September 19 , 2019 governorship election in the state.
The judge said the plaintiffs were too lazy to make efforts to cross- check from the University of Ibadan and the West African Examination Council the two institutions if the certificates used by Obaseki were forged.
The judge noted that the Deputy Registrar (Legal) of the University of Ibadan had given evidence in the suit that the university duly issued the certificate to Governor Obaseki.
According to him, the governor was duly and properly admitted to study Classics which was later renamed Classical Studies in 1976 and graduated in 1979.
Justice Mohammed concluded that the plaintiffs failed to prove their allegations of forgery against Governor Obaseki and, thereby, dismissed the case.
Before the judgement was delivered, counsels to both parties in the matter had closed their cases after they presented witnesses and evidence to the court.
READ ALSO: ‘My Re-election Represents A New Hope For Democracy’- Obaseki
During proceedings on Thursday, lawyer to the Plaintiffs, Akin Olujimi, adopted his final written address.
He urged the court to affirm their position that the governor presented a forged certificate to the electoral umpire and was unfit to occupy the office.
This was, however, rejected by Governor Obaseki’s counsel, Ken Mozia, who asked the court to dismiss the suit over what he described as the plaintiff’s failure to prove their case
Governor Obaseki contested and won the governorship election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in a bid to extend his stay in office by another four years.
Although he was elected into office for the first term on the APC platform, the governor later defected from the party after he was screened out from the party’s primary which saw Mr Osagie Ize-Iyamu emerging as the APC flagbearer for the election.
After defecting from the APC, he got the PDP’s ticket and went ahead to defeat Ize-Iyamu for the second time to claim the governorship seat for his second term in office in 2020.
