Gov. Lalong Presented False Documents Before INEC, And Must Vacate seat now – PDP Counsel, Chief Ozekhome
By Moses Gbande
The Plateau State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, sitting at High Court 7, West of Mines, Jos has reserved judgement on the petition filed by the Governorship Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. Jeremiah Useni, in the March 2019 Governorship election in the state.
Jeremiah Useni, is challenging the re-election of Governor Simon Bako Lalong of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), on claims that there were alot of irregularities during the election, including votes cancellation in the PDP dominated areas and that Lalong was not qualified to contest the elections.
During the adoption of final written addresses from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ahead of the judgement, Counsel to the Petitioners, Chief DR. Mike Ozekhome (SAN), described Governor Simon Lalong as a pretender, who needs to vacate the seat for the rightful owner (Senator Jeremiah Useni) to take his place as governor of the state.
According to him, there has been a lot of inconsistencies in the names of the seating governor Simon Bako Lalong who in form CF001 which was his personal documents where he presented Waec certificate bearing Sule simon, while other documents bear Simon Sule Bako and the other bears Bako Simon Lalong amounts to false declaration.
He submitted that, since the governor could not prove that he is the original owners of the said certificates during the prehearing sessions by CALLING WAEC or coming personally to testify,shows that, Lalong wasn’t qualified to contest the last governorship election in the State.
Speaking with Journalists after the seating, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), however urged the tribunal to issue a consequential order to the need for Governor Lalong to vacate the seat for the rightful owner (Senator Jeremiah Useni) to take his place as governor of the state.
“Our brief prayer at the end of the day is that the sitting Governor, Simon Lalong did not win any election, such as to enable him to continue to occupy government house .
“In my opening sentence, I described him as a pretender to the throne, and there can’t be two Obas, Emirs or Ezes to one palace; he has to vacate the palace for the rightful occupant, which is General Jeremiah Timbut Useni, who won the election square and right, whom the people of Plateau State voted for and who ought to have been declared the winner.
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We merely said as an alternative, that in the event that the court does not find a contention on the name, in the worst scenario is the deflate and inflate the votes that were cancelled, mutilated; then you will find that, the margin for winning is less than the margin of peoples votes that have been cancelled or mutilated, a rerun ought to be ordered.
“But the main issue has to do with who contested the election, form CF001, is a form of INEC which is proscribe under Section 183 of the electoral Act, which also gives the electoral umpire (INEC) to make guidelines, issue manuals, that form itself is a solemn oath.
He further explained that, “The Supreme Court in the latest case of Moddibo, described it as a certificate. So when you swear to it, you are swearing that everything you are saying is correct to the best of your knowledge.
“The only certificate, which is supposed to be a qualifying certificate owned by Governor Lalong, bears the name Sule Simon.
“Meanwhile, in his change of name, which he filled, he never referred to the name Sule Simon, or that he ever changed his name; when it came to that column, have you ever had any change of name, he said nil/dash, which means no. Which is a false declaration.
“And in his affidavit of change of name, changing from Sule Lalong Simon, to Sule Bako Lalong. So we have here a crisis of three names, which he ought to have come to the tribunal to explain by himself or call people from wide to say oh, its the Sule Simon that bears this name or swear to an Affidavit, but affidavit never referred to his name, Sule Simon, which is on his qualification.
“It means automatically he has no qualification to contest the election. Whether you have LLB, Masters, Doctorate you cannot build something upon nothing, that’s what the Supreme Court has said in many instances that once you have made a false declaration, it is not an issue that should be proved beyond reasonable doubt, it is simply that you have made a false declaration of a fundamental feature with has affected your qualification to contest that election.
“So ab initio, Governor Lalong was never qualified to contest the last governorship election, and if he was not qualified, then it follows as the night follows day; going by Supreme Court decisions, APC vs Kafi, the case of Kabiru Marafa against APC, among others which I even handled at the Supreme Court.
“It means that the next person who came second in that election, whether you call it consequential order, which blows directly from the case, or you call it immediate order altercate the position of that diadem, that crown, that person is General JT Useni.
He maintained that the tribunal had been “fair and firm” to all parties in the matter.
“But it is okay for anybody to raised an observation, but proving is a different thing; INEC even testified on behalf of the petitioners”, he stressed.
Meanwhile, Governor Simon Lalong, through his counsel, Garba Pwul (SAN), objected to the claims and insisted that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had proved that Lalong judiciously won the election based on his popularity and genuine votes scored during the election.
Pwul noted that the alleged cancellation of votes and crisis of certificate was the imagination of the petitioner, saying they remained confident of their victory which had been validated by INEC.
“The challenges we had was the people who did the interpretation from Hausa to English, some of them where not competent, as far as we are concern, that will not affect the merit of the case, we have confidence in our victory as confirmed by INEC at all levels of the litigation.”
Earlier, the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal reserved judgment in the petition of after all the parties involved adopted their final written addresses.
Justice H.A Suleeman, the
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