‘Certificate forgery’ causes APC delay in submitting candidates’ names

Three weeks to the Niger State local government election, the All Progressives Congress (APC) is yet to submit its final list of candidates to the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC).

The party is trying to determine the authenticity of the certificates of its candidates.

This followed the petitions accusing some of the local government chairmanship and councillorship candidates of certificate forgery.

As at Saturday, no fewer than three chairmanship and four councillorship candidates were alleged to be neck-deep in certificate forgery.

The Department of State Security (DSS) is helping the party to unravel the genuineness of the certificates the candidates were said to have submitted to the SIEC.

This development is causing delay in the submission of the party’s final list.

Other parties such as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) have submitted theirs.

A source close to the APC secretariat in Minna said the party had received petitions which bordered on alleged falsification of certificates by candidates for chairmanship and councillorship positions.

“We have received petitions, three against chairmanship candidates and some councillorship candidates that they forged their certificates.

“The party is, therefore, trying to verify the authenticity of these certificates so that we do not field wrong candidates for the election, and after the poll, the opposition party will challenge it in court and claim the mandate.

“This is why the party has not submitted the names of the candidates after the primaries about three weeks ago. The party does not want to take any chance. Any candidate found to have forged his certificate will be disqualified,” the source said.

One of the petitions made available to reporters in Minna against one of the chairmanship candidates from Paikoro Local Government alleged that the Grade 11 certificate the candidate submitted to the party was forged.

The petition, written by a body, the Garkuwa Support Group (GSO), was dated September 17, 2019 and titled: “Petition against the candidature of Honourable Yohana Yakubu for the chairmanship of Paikoro Local Government in the coming election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress”. It was signed by Comrade Hamsun Isah.

The APC Chairman in Niger State, Jibrin Iman, was unavailable for comments, as calls and text messages sent to his phone were not answered.