Edo State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Dan Orbih, has poked holes in the 1973 West African Examinations Council (WAEC) School Certificate that the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Mr Godwin Obaseki, claimed he used in gaining admission to study Classics at the University of Ibadan.
Orbih, who spoke at the weekend in Benin during a sport summit organised to look at the challenges facing sports development in the State, declared that available facts at his disposal indicated that the result in question could not have qualified Obaseki for admission, thus raising concern on the possibility that he falsified the WAEC result with which he gained admission.
The fresh doubt on Obaseki’s qualification by the PDP and its leadership in Edo State came on the heels of Obaseki’s claim last week that he had found the originals of his academic qualifications after the PDP raised concerns over an affidavit he deposed to at an Abuja Federal High Court on 7th June, 2016, in which he claimed that he lost the originals of all his academic certificates.
Orbih, at the event, displayed a photocopy of Obaseki’s WAEC certificate, which showed that the APC governorship candidate passed in the Third Division with credit in only three subjects, namely Religious Knowledge (C6), History (A3) and Geography (C6).
Obaseki, who sat for the examination at Eghosa Anglican Grammar School, Benin City, as claimed in the affidavit he deposed to, failed in Mathematics, Economics and Biology (and because he failed them, they were not indicated in the result) while he obtained P7 in English Language, P7 in English Literature and P8 in Chemistry.
According to Orbih, who was apparently upset with the discovery, “I have had Oshiomhole refer to him (Obaseki) as a technocrat and the candidate himself describes himself as one.
“Here, with me, is the school certificate he used to gain admission to the University of Ibadan. In this result, he did not pass Economics, but he calls himself head of State’s Economic Team. In the same certificate, he made P7 in English and failed Mathematics.
“He claimed he entered university the very year he left secondary school. How could he have gained admission with such result? The result was not even good enough for any form of preliminary studies. This can only mean that Godwin Obaseki forged certificates to gain admission to the University of Ibadan.
“It is obvious that the man has no requisite academic qualifications for admission as he had only three credits. How could you secure admission to study Classics without credit in English? It means that talks of his certificates missing and that he swore affidavit were all set out to cover a fraud.
“These credentials are certainly not intimidating. I must lay bare this information to Edo people so that we know if we have another ‘Chicago’ or ‘Toronto’ forged certificates saga in our hands.”
