The Osun State Election Petition Tribunal hearing the petition of former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola challenging the victory of Governor Ademola Adeleke has rejected blurred school certificates of Adeleke presented by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
At the last sitting, Chairman of the panel, Justice Tertse Kume, compelled INEC headquarters to present Adeleke’s certificate after the Osun office of INEC failed to do so.
At the resumption of sitting on Thursday, counsel to INEC, Prof Paul Ananaba, told the tribunal that the commission’s chairman sent a deputy director, Mrs. Joan Arabs, with the Certified True Copies of the documents.
The 8- page documents were presented to the sitting as Ananaba urged the court to permit the bearer to leave the court immediately in order to catch her flight back to Abuja.
However, the lead counsel for Oyetola and All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) informed the court that N305,000 was paid for the documents.
He raised concern that two pages of the documents brought to court by INEC are blurred, and therefore not legible.
He complained: “WAEC GCE Certificate of Education content is not legible except for signature and Testimonial obtained from Ede Muslim Grammar School is not clear.”
Ananaba said he cannot answer on the legibility of the documents submitted by the commission to the sitting.
Fagbemi argued that the scores of the candidate on the certificate were not clear, saying: “We feel worried and frustrated that INEC did not bring clean copies of the documents. The scores are not on the certificate brought and we won’t manage the documents brought by INEC which are not legible.
“Also in the testimonial, the address of the school attended was missing. So, the legible certificates must be produced.”
After the arguments, Justice Kume adjourned the matter to Saturday, December 3, 2022 for the INEC to present clearer documents before the court.