The All Progressives Congress (APC), has put a lie to a Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo who accused its governorship candidate for Katsina state in the February election, Aminu Masari, of certificate forgery.
Keyamo had petitioned claiming that Masari presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the February election.
Masari emerged the APC gubernatorial candidate in Katsina after polling about 50 per cent of total votes cast to defeat three other aspirants during the primary election held in the state last year.
He was former speaker of the House of Representatives. As speaker between 2003 and 2007, he was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In his petition dated December 17, Keyamo said that if the APC fields the former Speaker in the 2015 general elections, those claims could earn him a disqualification from INEC, or if he wins, a removal from the governorship seat.
“Kindly note, that in the year 2011, the subject of this petition, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari contested for the office of Governor of Katsina State under the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, CPC.
“In filling Form CF-001 (Personal Particulars of Candidate), he alleged that he has a Post-Graduate Diploma. As evidence of this, he attached a Certificate in ‘Postgraduate Diploma in Water Quality Control and Management’ from Middlesex Polytechnic, United Kingdom.”
Keyamo filed the petition on behalf of five APC members in Katsina State – Ibrahim Yadullah, Kabir Mamman, Aminu Hashirmu, Falalu Sale and Ya’u Sule.
An inquiry that was made in the said polytechnic, according to Keyamo, showed that no such course was offered by the school in the said year.
But the APC replied the lawyer through its National Legal Adviser, Muiz Banire, clearing Masari of certificate forgery.
In a letter dated December 29, APC said thhat it has conducted its own investigations on the matter and did not find the issues raised meritorious.
“Please be informed that the National Working Committee (NWC) of our great party has considered your letter with particular reference to the said allegations and do not find the allegations raised therein meritorious,” the party said.
“It is based on the foregoing that we are unable to reverse the nomination of Hon. Aminu Bello Masari as our gubernatorial candidate for Katsina state general election schedule to come up in February 2014,” the party said.
APC however thanked Keyamo for having the time to write the petition. [myad]
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