Tribunal Sacks Federal Lawmaker Over Alleged Certificate Forgery

Tribunal Sacks Federal Lawmaker Over Alleged Certificate Forgery

Barely 72 hours after it lost the governorship election in Edo state, APC has lost another seat at the federal House of Representatives, Abuja. The tribunal sacked the APC candidate, Kasim Danjuma, over alleged certificate forgery.

Danjuma was said to have presented forged certificate to INEC before the election.

The National Assembly election petition tribunal sitting in Niger State has sacked Kasim Danjuma, the candidate All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Magama/Rijau federal constituency by-election held in the state. This Day reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Danjuma winner of the by-election held on March 27, 2020.

It was gathered that the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the by-election, Emma Alamu, had approached the tribunal over the poll. He accused Danjuma of submitting forged documents to INEC thereby making him ineligible to contest the by-election.

Alamu said that Danjuma presented a fake primary school certificate and forged declaration of age certificate to INEC for the clearance. Mohammed Ndayako, the counsel to the petitioner, asked the tribunal to quash the victory of the APC candidate and declare his client the winner.

The three-man tribunal headed by Justice B. F. Zubairu, unanimously upheld that the petition and declared the victory of Danjuma null and void.

The tribunal said the petitioner proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the first respondent presented forged documents to INEC which enabled him to contest the election.

It, therefore, annulled the election and directed INEC to conduct a fresh election in the constituency within the next 90 days.