TODAY, only sixty-one hours to the gubernatorial and national assembly elections scheduled for Saturday 9, a Federal High Court in Jalingo, Taraba State has decided that Sani Abubakar Danladi, the gubernatorial flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was no longer qualified to participate in the elections.
The court faulted documents provided by Danladi to the Independent Electoral Commission on the grounds that he lied about his age, and disqualified him from Saturday’s election.
On January 9th, this year Mr Usman Udi and three others had established a suit (N0.FH/JAL/CS/1/2019), seeking a court order to prevent Danladi from taking part in the election, accusing him of false declaration of age.
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Apart from Danladi, other defendants in the case are APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Justice Steven Pam of the Federal High court, questioned the eligibility of Danladi to contest the governorship election in the state after noting some differences in the age declaration of the defendant in certain documents.
In the affidavit of the 1st defendant’s personal particulars, his date of birth was 14th February, 1968, which the judge observed was in contradiction with his date of birth – 3rd April, 1977 as contained in his West African Senior School Certificate.
Justice Pam therefore ruled, “That the information given by the 1st defendant (Abubakar Sani Danladi) as to his age in the affidavit in support of his personal particulars in the INEC Form CF001 submitted to the 3rd defendant (The Independent National Electoral Commission) by him is hereby declared false.
“That the 1st defendant is hereby disqualified from contesting election as the candidate of the 2nd defendant (The All Progressives Congress) in the governorship election for Taraba state slated for 9th March, 2019 or any subsequent date to be slated on the ground that the information contained in the affidavit in support of the 1st defendant’s personal particulars in the INEC Form CF001 submitted to the 3rd defendant as to his age is false.”