By Charles Adingupu
There was mild drama at the Election Petition Tribunal as the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) failed to tender the original certificate of Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu before the court.
The incident left the Governor in a dicey situation as the tribunal ordered the examination body to submit its result verification portal back-end server and other information technology infrastructure for forensic analysis in order to discover Sanwo-Olu’s results.
However, a review of Sanwo-Olu’s 2019 Form CF001 showed that the WAEC result he claimed he sat for in 1981 in Ijebu Ife Community Grammar School, Ogun state, was found to be invalid from 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 had challenged the integrity of the suddenly uploaded WAEC result of Sanwo-Olu 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 to be in court last week had in the oath of witnesses deposed to 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 Sanwoolu, 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 of the sudden appearance of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s purported 1981 WAEC uploaded result as the same result wasn’t there as of APRIL 7th, 2023 when Jandor/PDP filed their petition at the tribunal.”
