The candidate of the All Progressives Congress within the September 21 governorship election in Edo State, Monday Okpebholo, has been summoned by a Justice of the Peace’s Court docket in Abuja for allegedly making a false assertion on his date of beginning.
A doc sighted by Saturday PUNCH confirmed that Okpebholo was requested to seem earlier than the court docket at 12 midday on Friday, September 20 by Justice of the Peace Abubakar Mukhtar.
He’s accused of claiming conflicting dates of beginning in his nomination types submitted to the Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee to contest the election.
“Whereas your attendance is required to reply to a cost of creating a false assertion on oath, you’re summoned to seem in individual earlier than the Justice of the Peace Court docket at Wuse Zone 2 on the twentieth of September, 2024, at 12 midday,” the summons learn.
The case, with go well with no CR/W22/816/2024, was instituted by an indigene of Edo State, Honesty Aginbatse, who alleged that Okpebholo claimed he was born on 29/08/1970 within the kind submitted to INEC, whereas one other doc submitted by him states 29/08/1972 as his date of beginning.
Aginbatse stated, “The defendant, on 24/03/2024, submitted an inventory of his private particulars dated 05/03/2024 to INEC whereby he made an announcement in merchandise quantity 4 in Half B, stating that he was born on 29/08/1970. An authorized true copy (C.T.C) of the checklist of non-public particulars submitted to INEC by the defendant is connected to this criticism and marked as Exhibit B.”
“In the identical Exhibit B, the defendant made a declaration on oath dated 05/03/2024, supported by a verifying affidavit, whereby he connected a number of paperwork, together with a Statutory Declaration of Age deposed to on 04/06/2022 by one Okpebholo Ojeifo Joseph; marked as Exhibit C on this criticism, and a West African Senior Faculty Certificates with Candidate and Certificates numbers 4320545182 and NGWASSCS11023655 respectively, marked as Exhibit D on this criticism. The stated Exhibit D accommodates an announcement indicating that the defendant was born on 29/08/1972, which is fake in all its materials particulars.”
“That is significantly so, because the statutory declaration of age talked about in paragraph 7 above as Exhibit C, which in legislation stands within the stead of the defendant’s Start Certificates, definitively affirmed that the defendant was born on 29/08/1970.”