Election petition: WAEC fails to produce Sanwo-Olu’s certificate as PDP’s Jandor accuses governor of faking document

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has failed to tender the original certificate of Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu before the Lagos State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.

The tribunal has therefore ordered the examination body to submit its result verification portal back-end server and other information technology infrastructure for forensic analysis of Sanwo-Olu’s results.

The Lagos State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal issued the order based on the request of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Jide Adediran (aka Jandor), that Sanwo-Olu lied on oath in his 2023 form EC9 by presenting a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2019.

A review of Sanwo-Olu’s 2019 Form CF001 found that the stated statement of WAEC result he claimed he sat for in 1981 in Ijebu Ife Community Grammar School, Ogun state, was verified to be invalid on the WAEC result verification portal, according to a statement sent to newsmen on Monday, June 26.

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 Sanwo-Olu, 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.”