A classmate of Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara State at the Government College, Kaduna, Mohammed Kabiru Yaro, has told the Governorship Elections Petition Tribunal sitting in Ilorin that the governor possesses genuine and authentic West African Examinations Council (WAEC) certificate.
Yaro, an architect, on Tuesday, said that Governor Abdulrazaq is his bosom friend and that both of them and other members of the class sat WAEC in June 1976 at the Government College in Kaduna, Kaduna State.
It should be recalled that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate in the March 9, 2019 election Hon. Razak Atunwa, are alleging that business mogul-turned politician presented forged WAEC certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to contest the election.
During cross-examination by the All Progressives Congress (APC) counsel Akin Olujimi (SAN), Yaro presented his original WAEC certificate in court for perusal, adding that: “I have my own
certificate obtained from that WAEC examination”.
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He also revealed that during their time, WAEC would write their surnames in full and initialise other names.
“Abdulrahman, as we used to refer to him, was directly seated in my front and his serial number in WAEC was 199, while mine was 122.
“Based on what I know about the certificate of Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, he was very much qualified to contest the March 9, 2019 election”, he said.
Olujimi (SAN) later tendered the certificate of the witness as evidence.
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However, counsel to the petitioners, Kingsley Odey, applied to re-cross-examine the witness on his 1976 WAEC certificate adopted as evidence in the spirit of fair hearing.
“During the pre-trial session parties were asked to present documents for identification, but Abdulrazaq (second respondent) did not present his WAEC certificate for identification.
The presentation of such a document today is a surprise to the petitioners.
“Our application is that the petitioners should be given the opportunity to examine the witness on the document in the interest of fair-hearing”, he said.
Olujimi, however, urged the tribunal to dismiss the application to re-cross examine the certificate as un-meritorious.
“In my limited number of years in practice, I have always known of three categories of examination; ie. examination-in-chief, cross-examination and re-examination.
Once a tribunal or court has offered parties the opportunity as may be relevant or applied to each party, there is no fourth category of examination that is called re-cross-examination which is what the petitioners’ counsel is praying your lordships”, he said.
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