Governor of Edo State and aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki may have reached the end of the road in his quest to fly the gubernatorial flag of the All Progressives Congress in the forthcoming September 19, 2020 election in Edo State.
This is as the National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress has upheld the verdict of both committees that maintains that Governor Obaseki stands disqualified owing to his ineligibility in the wisdom of the party in the forthcoming guber election in Edo State.
National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Party, Adams Oshiomhole said the National Working Committee (NWC) has reviewed the two reports and was satisfied that members of the committees were all united in their decisions.
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Consequently, the three aspirants disqualified were Governor Godwin Obaseki, Chris Ogiemwonyi and Messrs Matthew Aigbuhuenze Iduoriyekemwen.
Oshiomhole also said that the party has also approved the expulsion of one of the governorship aspirants Mathew Iduorikemwen and a party member in Edo State, Kenneth Asakomeh, Edo State deputy state chairman of the APC.
Chairman of the party and immediate past governor of Edo State Oshiomhole commended the two committees for what he described as a “thorough job.”
Dr Abubakar Fari led Screening Appeal Committee of the Party which validated Obaseki’s disqualification by the Professor Jonathan Ayuba led screening committee presented the report to Oshiomhole.
Although Governor Obaseki did not Appeal to the committee over his disqualification for his conviction that he will not get fair treatment, his disqualification was reviewed by the committee to ascertain the level of work done by the appeal committee to arrive at Obaseki’s disqualification.
Fari who submitted his committee report to the National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress on Saturday said: “We looked at the grounds on which he was disqualified and I would like to say his disqualification was based on solid grounds.”
Professor Ayuba led Screening committee screened out the Edo State governor for what it described as ‘ineligible’ aspirant because of inconsistencies on his certificate from the Institute of Continuous education and wrongful spelling of his name on his NYSC certificate.
The committee said it went further to interrogate the disqualification of the other aspirants and upheld the disqualifications of two aspirants Matthew Iduoriyekewen and Chris Ogiemwonyi.
Fari who presented the report to the Chairman of the Party said: “This committee finds that although the screening committee disqualified Obaseki on the evidence of the documents he presented, however, the committee did not take into account their contradictions in the various petitions submitted to the committee against Godwin Obaseki.”
“We take the liberty to highlight these discrepancies.
“In the affidavit sworn to by Godwin Obaseki before the High Court Abuja, he stated under oath that he graduated from the University of Ibadan with a BA degree in Classical Studies in 1976. However, the University certificate he attached to his nomination form bears 1979 which is a material contradiction.
He continued that: “We found the screening Committee findings on the other two as justified. In respect of Mathew, the appeal committee in the course of reviewing the report of the screening committee observed that it failed to make a finding and draw a conclusion of his prejudicial finding of filing a legal action against the National Chairman and the party itself. We reached the conclusion that such conduct runs contrary to Article 21 (D) 5 of the party’s 2014 constitution as amended.
“Having failed to exhaust internal mechanisms for seeking redress in the party prior to instituting the action and pursuant to the same provision. As a result of that, we upheld the decision of the screening committee that he should be disqualified and he is so disqualified by the appeal Committee.”
