Electoral Commission to nullify the Certificate of Return issued to
Christian Abah for the Ado/Okpokwu/Ogbadibo Federal Constituency
seat in the House of Representatives at the forthcoming 8th National
Assembly. The PUNCH reports.
Justice Adeniyi Ademola, delivering judgment in the suit, challenging
Abah's eligibility to stand for the election, held that the allegation
of certificate forgery levelled against him by the plaintiff, Mr.
Hassan Saleh, had been established to be true.
Abah was said to have forged an Ordinary National Diploma certificate
in Accountancy, purportedly obtained from the Federal Polytechnic,
Mubi, in 1985.
Justice Ademola said his findings revealed that an earlier judgment of
the National/State Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal, sitting in
Makurdi, delivered on September 6, 2011, and a letter by the Registrar
of the polytechnic, Mr. Suleiman Buba, affirmed that the certificate
presented by Abah to INEC was forged.
The court ordered the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase,
to immediately commence prosecution of Abah for forgery and perjury.
Abah, who is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, had earlier
been declared unopposed and elected being the only candidate presented
for the March 28, 2015 election.
The court, in his judgment, declared all the votes that accrued to
him in the PDP's primary, held on December 6, 2014, as wasted and also
declared Saleh, who came second as the winner of the primary.
He ordered INEC to issue a fresh Certificate of Return to Saleh.
The court also ordered the incoming Speaker of the 8th National
Assembly to swear in Saleh as the member representing
Ado/Okpokwu/Ogbadibo Federal Constituency.
The court also berated the conduct of the counsel for PDP and Abah in
the suit, Mr. S.I Ameh (SAN), for the frivolous applications and
tactics to delay the hearing of the case.
Justice Ademola therefore ordered that the processes filed in the suit
and his judgment be served on the Nigerian Bar Association, the Legal
Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, the Legal Practitioners
Privileges Committee with a view of taking appropriate sanctions
against Ameh.
The judge also imposed a N450,000 fine on the three defendants - the
PDP, INEC and Abah in favour of the plaintiff.
The court berated both the INEC and PDP for promoting "the culture of
impunity" by their failure to disqualify Abah from participating in
the election in view of the court judgment that had since 2011
affirmed that he (Abah) presented a forged certificate for the purpose
of standing for an election.
--PUNCH
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