Alleged Certificate Forgery: Court dismisses suit seeking to disqualify Kogi lawmaker

A  Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed a suit on certificate forgery filed against Lawal Idris, the lawmaker representing Ajaokuta Federal Constituency of Kogi State in the House of Representatives.

The suit which was filed by Okino Adeiza of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was on Friday dismissed by Justice Taiwo Taiwo on the grounds that the court was without jurisdiction to hear it.

Idris, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), had won his reelection bid during the 2019 general elections despite the suit being unresolved.

Adeiza, who contested the election on the platform of PDP, had filed a suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1264/2018, claiming that Idris gave false personal information in the Form CF001 he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2015 and 2019.

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He accused Idris of submitting forged National Diploma (ND) purportedly issued by the Yaba College of Technology Lagos to INEC in 2015 as his highest qualification.

Adeiza stated that, although Idris excluded the allegedly forged ND certificate from the documents he submitted for the 2019 election, he (Idris) also made false claim, in the Form CF001 he submitted for the last election, when he said he has never given false information to INEC in the past.

According to the plaintiff argued, by allegedly submitting forged credentials to INEC in 2015 and making false claim in 2019 that he has never supplied false information to INEC in the past, Idris was no longer qualified to stand for election, and should be disqualified.

The APC, INEC and Idris were listed as 1st, 2nd and 3rd defendants in the suit.

Justice Taiwo, in the judgment on Friday, upheld the objections raised by the defendants about the competence of the suit; declined jurisdiction and dismissed it.

The judge agreed with the lawyer to Idris, Abdul Ibrahim (SAN) that the suit was not only statute barred, it was caught by the twin legal doctrine of estopel and res judicata.

The judge noted that, after the 2015 elections, Adeiza had challenged Idris’ eligibility up to the Court of Appeal, with the appellate court holding that he (Adeiza) failed to prove his claim of forgery against Idris.

“This suit, a pre-election matter was not commenced within 14 days after the submission of the 3rd def’s name (Idris) to INEC as candidate of the 1st defendant (APC) as its candidate for the election.

“The judgement of the Court of Appeal has laid to rest the allegation of forgery, whether of age or certificates, raised against the 3rd defendant (Idris),” the judge said.

In holding that the suit was an abuse of court process, the judge said the case did not only abuse the process of the court process, having been filed mala fie (in bad faith), it was incompetent.

Justice Taiwo said, having pursued the issue of forgery against Idris up to the Court of Appeal (which is the last court in legislative election disputes) and failed, the plaintiff ought not to have come before the Federal High Court again on the same issue.

The judge advised Adeiza to ask the police to investigate and prosecute Idris on the allegation of forgery or obtain a fiat from the police to prosecute Idris for the alleged criminal offence of forgery.

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