Edo Poll: Court Summons APC Candidate Over Alleged Discrepancies In Date Of Birth

A Magistrate Court in Abuja has summoned the candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the September 21 governorship election in Edo State, Monday Okpebholo, for allegedly making a false statement on his date of birth.

Okpebholo was asked to appear before the court at 12 noon on Friday, September 20 by Magistrate Abubakar Mukhtar.

The APC candidate is accused of claiming conflicting dates of birth in his nomination forms submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission to contest the election.

“Whereas your attendance is required to answer to a charge of making a false statement on oath, you are summoned to appear in person before the Magistrate Court at Wuse Zone 2 on the 20th of September, 2024, at 12 noon,” the summons read.

An indigene of Edo State, Honesty Aginbatse, instituted the case, with suit no CR/W22/816/2024.

Aginbatse had alleged that Okpebholo claimed he was born on 29/08/1970 in the form submitted to INEC, while another document submitted by him states 29/08/1972 as his date of birth.

Aginbatse said, “The defendant, on 24/03/2024, submitted a list of his personal particulars dated 05/03/2024 to INEC wherein he made a statement in item number 4 in Part B, stating that he was born on 29/08/1970. A certified true copy (C.T.C) of the list of personal particulars submitted to INEC by the defendant is attached to this complaint and marked as Exhibit B.”

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“In the same Exhibit B, the defendant made a declaration on oath dated 05/03/2024, supported by a verifying affidavit, wherein he attached several documents, including a Statutory Declaration of Age deposed to on 04/06/2022 by one Okpebholo Ojeifo Joseph; marked as Exhibit C in this complaint, and a West African Senior School Certificate with Candidate and Certificate numbers 4320545182 and NGWASSCS11023655 respectively, marked as Exhibit D in this complaint. The said Exhibit D contains a statement indicating that the defendant was born on 29/08/1972, which is false in all its material particulars.”

“This is particularly so, as the statutory declaration of age mentioned in paragraph 7 above as Exhibit C, which in law stands in the stead of the defendant’s Birth Certificate, definitively affirmed that the defendant was born on 29/08/1970.”