Court of Appeal sitting in Benin City, the Edo State capital, has set aside the judgment delivered by the Edo State High Court which disqualified the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, and his Deputy, Gani Audi, over alleged certificate forgery against the deputy governorship candidate.
The three-man justices of the Court of Appeal unanimously set aside the lower court judgment which disqualified Ize-Iyamu and Gani Audi on the 6th of January 2021.
On January 6, 2021, Justice Courage Ogbebor of the Edo State High Court disqualified the APC governorship candidate and his running mate over discrepancies in the name of the running mate’s documents that he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Form EC9 in the suit filed by one Kadiri Oshoakpemhe challenging the eligibility of the running mate of the APC governorship candidate Gani Audu to contest the september nineteen election.
Osagie Ize-Iyamu, Gani Audu, and APC approached the High Court seeking the lower court ruling to be set aside.
On Monday, March 8, 2021, the three justices of the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin City in a unanimous judgment set aside the Edo State High Court judgment of Justice Courage Ogbebor which disqualified the APC governorship candidate and his running mate.
The Appeal Court ruled that the appellant at the lower court filed out of time by two days which makes his suit before the lower court statute barred and that he could not prove the case of the forgery against Gani Audu beyond all reasonable doubt by providing the original of the forged document to the court.
The justices said the first respondent in the appeal before the appellate court is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill and his case is grossly incompetent, the justices, therefore, set aside the ruling of the lower court.