Tribunal Sacks Federal Lawmaker Over Alleged Certificate Forgery
Barely seventy-hours after it lost the governorship election in Edo state, the National Assembly election petition tribunal sitting in Niger has sacked Kasim Danjuma, the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Magama/Rijau federal constituency by-election held in the state.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Danjuma winner of the by-election held on March 27, 2020.
Newsmen 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 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 further annulled the election and directed INEC to conduct a fresh election in the constituency within the next 90 days.
