The Screening Appeal Committee of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on Saturday upheld the disqualification of Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State to contest the party’s primary.
The committee, while upholding Obaseki’s disqualification, said they discovered more facts why the governor should not participate in the election.
Chairman of the appeal panel, Dr. Abubakar Fari, disclosed that the decision followed a review of the report of the party’s screening committee.
Fari, who submitted the committee report to the Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee on Saturday said only one out of the three disqualified aspirants appealed the decision.
Fari said, “We looked at the grounds on which Obaseki was disqualified and I would like to say his disqualification was based on solid grounds.”
He said the committee reviewed the screening committee report on the other two.
Fari added, “We found the screening committee’s findings on the other two as justified. In respect of Mathew, the appeal committee in the course of reviewing the report of the screening committee observed that it failed to make a finding and draw a conclusion of his prejudicial finding of filing a legal action against the national chairman and the party itself. We reached the conclusion that such conduct runs contrary to Article 21 (D) 5 of the party’s 2014 constitution as amended. As a result of that, we upheld the decision of the screening committee that he should be disqualified and he is so disqualified by the appeal committee.” He noted that Obaseki’s case was also reviewed.
Fari said, “This committee finds that although the screening committee disqualified Obaseki on the evidence of the documents he presented, however, the committee did not take into account their contradictions in the various petitions submitted to the committee against him. We take the liberty to highlight these discrepancies.
“In the affidavit sworn to by Godwin Obaseki before the High Court Abuja, he stated under oath that he graduated from the University of Ibadan with a BA degree in Classical Studies in 1976. However, the university certificate he attached to his nomination form bears 1979 which is a material contradiction.’’
Sunday PUNCH reports that the committee also said it found it hard to believe he gained admission to study at the university with three credits without a proper A levels or a diploma.
It also noted that the governor also had two separate voter cards which were illegal, adding that the attestation letter of the institute the governor claimed to have attended was not on the letter head of the school.
The committee also said it found entry inconsistencies in the forms Obaseki submitted for scrutiny.
