Ibezim faults Appeal Court decision, says name variants not enough to disqualify him

Pascal Oparada

The candidate of the All Progressives Congres, APC, in the Imo North Senatorial by-election in December last year, Sir Frank Ibezim, has faulted the Appeal Court decision, which validated his disqualification by the Federal High Court Abuja.

The appellate court, in a unanimous decision by a three-man panel of Justices, affirmed the judgment of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to remove Ibezim’s name from the list of candidates for the by-election, after it found him guilty of submitting falsified documents.

The High Court judgment followed a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1229/2020, which was filed against Ibezim by Asomugha Elebeke.

Trial Justice, Inyang Ekwo, had in the judgment he delivered on December 4, 2020, barely 24 hours to the by-election, disqualified Ibezim for allegedly making false statements/declarations in the affidavit and documents he tendered to both the APC and INEC.

The court held that evidence before it showed that Ibezim presented falsified and uncertified photocopies of his West African Examination School Certificate, WASC.

Specifically, Justice Ekwo found that the WASC certificate that was submitted by Ibezim bore two different and irreconcilable names, Ibezim Chukwuma Frank and Ibezim Francis Chukwuma.

The court, therefore, held that Ibezim was “not qualified/eligible for nomination to contest the Imo North Senatorial By-Election, having made false declarations in the affidavit and certificates he submitted to INEC for the purpose of contesting the Imo North Senatorial by-election, and the irreconcilable conflicts in his names”.

It, therefore, barred INEC from accepting him as the candidate of the APC for the senatorial bye-election.

However, Ibezim stated that the court was wrong on many grounds and relying on weak evidence of mere name variation to disqualify him.

According to the result seen by this newspaper, Ibezim had many distinctions in his results.

Nevertheless, in disqualifying him based on allegations of certificate forgery, the petitioner invited neither Uboma Secondary School, Ikperejere, Etiti in Imo State nor the West African Examination Council, WAEC, as witnesses in the suit to deny or confirm the veracity of the certificate presented by Ibezim.

On the issue of variously using Frank and Francis, Ibezim said his photograph would have been enough proof that he is the bonafide owner of the results and that his opponent could not contest the facts that the result and certificates are his but relying on a mere technicality.

The embattled APC candidate said the court was too lenient on his opponents and relied on him to prove his innocence instead of expecting them to prove their allegations against him, as is standard in matters of this nature.

Dissatisfied by the judgment, Ibezim approached the Court of Appeal to quash the ruling of the lower court.

However, the appeal court on Saturday, upheld the ruling of the High Court, a decision Ibezim is kicking against and likely heading to the Supreme Court