The genuine certificate of Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor of Lagos State, has not been presented by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) before the Lagos State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.
In order to conduct a forensic investigation of Sanwo-Olu’s results, the tribunal has ordered the examination body to provide its result verification portal back-end server and other information technology infrastructure.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate Abdulazeez Adediran asked for the order after alleging that Sanwo-Olu had submitted a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2019 and lied under oath in his 2023 form EC9. The Lagos State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal granted the request.
The statement partially read: “While responding to Jandor/ PDP petition, Governor Sanwo-Olu didn’t attach the purported WAEC certificate to counter Jandor/PDP claims, but the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the 4th respondent attached a printout from the same WAEC portal which hitherto confirmed Sanwo-Olu’s purported WAEC result to be non-existent.”
Jandor challenged the integrity of the sudden appearance and upload of Sanwo-Olu’s WAEC result on the verification portal and subpoenaed WAEC to come and tender the said 1981 WAEC certificate under oath in court.
The WAEC representative who was bid to be in court last week in the oath of witnesses deposed to and sighted said: “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.”
The witness added that WAEC did not produce counterpart copies of candidates’ certificates nor retain duplicate copies of candidates’ certificates.
The statement added that: “However, a check on the WAEC website revealed that in the event of loss of the WAEC certificate, the council issues an attestation in the form of a CTC, but none of such was issued by WAEC to ascertain the claim of Babajide Sanwoolu, hence the order of the court that WAEC should submit it back end-server and other information technology infrastructure for forensic analysis. This exercise will expose the date and time the sudden appearance of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s purported 1981 WAEC result was uploaded, as the same result wasn’t there as of APRIL 7th, 2023 when Jandor/PDP filed their petition at the tribunal.”