GODWIN Obaseki, Governor of Edo State has passed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) screening to contest in the party’s governorship primary election describing the exercise as ‘fair and professionally done’.
Speaking after the screening exercise which was done on Saturday, Obaseki who stated that he presented the same academic certificates which were the basis for his disqualification by the All Progressives Congress (APC) said there was objectivity in the screening process.
“The screening was fair, it was very professionally done. You could see objectivity and I presented all my certificates- my secondary school, higher school, university and my National Youth Service Certificates so that they can look at them and see if there are inconsistencies in them,” he said.
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The opposition party, PDP has fixed the governorship primary election in Edo State for Thursday, June 25 and the governor will contest against Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama, Gideon Ikhine, and Kenneth Imansuangbon who were also cleared by the Screening Committee.
The ICIR reported why Obaseki was disqualified by a seven-man screening committee of the APC led by Professor Jonathan Ayuba, over “multiple inconsistencies in his presented academic certificates.”
“Governor Godwin Obaseki was deemed ineligible by the screening committee over multiple inconsistencies in his presented academic certificates, including a Higher School Leaving Certificate the Governor claimed to have obtained from an Institute of Continuing Education in Benin City, Edo State,” the Committee had said.
Obaseki had on Tuesday renounced his membership of APC after meeting with Ibrahim Gambari, Chief of Staff (CoS) to President Muhammadu Buhari.
On Tuesday, June 19, he officially became a member of the PDP when he picked membership form and also picked the party’s governorship nomination form.
Samad Uthman is a multimedia journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. He tweets @sarmerdk2 and can be shot through [email protected]