Monday Okpebholo, the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate in Edo State, has been summoned by a magistrate’s court in Abuja for allegedly making a false statement on his date of birth.
A document sighted by Saturday Punch showed that Okpebholo was asked to appear before the court at noon on Friday, September 20 by Magistrate Abubakar Mukhtar.
Okpebholo is accused of claiming conflicting dates of birth in his nomination forms.
“Whereas your attendance is required to answer to a charge of making a false statement on oath, you are summoned to appear in person before the Magistrate Court at Wuse Zone 2 on the 20th of September, 2024, at 12 noon,” the summons read.
Honesty Aginbatse, an Edo State indigene, filed suit number. CR/W22/816/2024, alleging that Okpebholo claimed he was born on 29/08/1970 in the form given to INEC, while another document supplied by him says 29/08/1972 as his date of birth.
Aginbatse said, “The defendant, on 24/03/2024, submitted a list of his personal particulars dated 05/03/2024 to INEC, wherein he made a statement in item number 4 in Part B, stating that he was born on 29/08/1970. A certified true copy (C.T.C.) of the list of personal particulars submitted to INEC by the defendant is attached to this complaint and marked as Exhibit B.”
“In the same Exhibit B, the defendant made a declaration on oath dated 05/03/2024, supported by a verifying affidavit, wherein he attached several documents, including a Statutory Declaration of Age deposed to on 04/06/2022 by one Okpebholo Ojeifo Joseph, marked as Exhibit C in this complaint, and a West African Senior School Certificate with Candidate and Certificate numbers 4320545182 and NGWASSCS11023655, respectively, marked as Exhibit D in this complaint. The said Exhibit D contains a statement indicating that the defendant was born on 29/08/1972, which is false in all its material particulars.”
“This is particularly so, as the statutory declaration of age mentioned in paragraph 7 above as Exhibit C, which in law stands in the stead of the defendant’s birth certificate, definitively affirmed that the defendant was born on 29/08/1970.”
