Nigerian Senator Faces Sack Over Certificate Forgery

A lawmaker of the red chambers representing Nassarawa state might be shown the exit doors by court injunction after strong allegations of certificate forgery is being deliberated upon.

Senator Suleiman Asonya Adokwe

 A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has been asked to remove Senator Suleiman Asonya Adokwe, representing Nasarawa South Senatorial District, for allegedly presenting a false certificates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for election, according to Daily Post.

Adokwe assumed office as a legislator in December 2015 after the court has removed Architect Salihu Hussaini Egyegbola.

Egyegbola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared winner of the senatorial election by INEC, a decision Adokwe contested at the election tribunal.

He lost at the tribunal, but won at the Court of Appeal, which in a December 10, 2015 judgment voided Egyegbola’s election and ordered INEC to return Adokwe as winner of the election for the Nasarawa South Senatorial District.

 The plaintiff, Mohammed Abubakar Ozegya, in the suit he filed through his lawyer, Mathew Burkaa, before the Federal High Court, Abuja, stated, in a supporting affidavit, that upon Adokwe’s assumption of office, he discovered from the Form CF001 he (Adokwe) submitted to INEC, that the Senator presented certificates bearing other people’s names.

Ozegya, who claimed to be an indigene of Nasarawa State, said he discovered, in the Form CF001CF001 (affidavit in support of personal particulars of person seeking election to the office or membership of the Senate) deposed to on December 16, 2014 at the High Court of Justice, Lafia, Nasarawa State, that the 1st defendant (Adokwe) “submitted the WAEC certificate of one Adokwe Solomon and primary school certificate of Sule Adokwai, purporting same to be his.

“It is a fact in the Nasarawa South Senatorial District that the certificate of one Adokwe Solomon and Sule Adokwai presented by the 1st defendant are certainly not his certificates

“It is even more surprising that the 2nd defendant allowed the 1st defendant to use the WAEC and primary School certificates of an unknown third party to contest election in the first place. By presenting the WAEC certificate of one one Adokwe Solomon and Sule Adokwai in his Form CF001, the 1st defendant is not fit to continue to occupy the seat in the national Assembly,” the plaintiff said.

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