The governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Akwa Ibom State, Pastor Umo Eno, yesterday defeated his political traducer, Mr. Akan Okon in the court over alleged forgery of West African School Certificate (WASC).

In a judgement that lasted for more than three hours, Justice Agatha Okeke of the Federal High Court, Uyo, dismissed the case as trite, baseless and invalid.

Not only that, the court awarded N15m cost against Mr. Okon in favour of Pastor Umo Eno, PDP and INEC who were defendants in the case.

The Court held that all the claims by the plaintiff, Mr Okon, were based on assumptions and speculations.

The Court also held that throughout the hearing, Mr. Okon and his lawyers did not tender any valid document to prove it’s allegations. The plantiff (Akan Okon) did not invite WAEC as witness on the matter of certificate forgery, neither did he summon INEC on the matter of voters card nor the university of Uyo on the matter of age falsification.

The court held that Pastor Eno’s students information form from University of Uyo tendered by Mr. Akan Okon as an exhibit was not certified by the University as required by law.

The Court rejected the letter purportedly written by West African Examinations Council to a group known as Association for Advancement of Democracy in Nigeria, AADN, tendered by Mr. Okon, as fake. The fake WAEC letter which was also widely published in local tabloid to defame Pastor Eno’s character had alleged that Pastor Eno’s name was not on the list of WAEC candidates who wrote examinations in 1981 and 1983. The Court said that Mr. Okon did not bring AADN as witnesses neither did he invite the Chairman of AADN, which he claimed was the source of the fake WAEC letter.

The only witness that Mr. Okon called to prove his allegation was a retired police handwriting expert, who confessed that he did not contact WAEC to authenticate or obtain a certified true copy of Pastor Eno’s certificate, though he had collected N600,000 from Mr. Okon as fees.

The Court in its judgement held that the Mr. Okon failed to fulfill the conditions for the use of a document as an evidence. The court reasoned that the document tendered by Mr. Okon did not carry any authentication, as the petitioner admitted he received it electronically through email and WhatsApp.

On documents tendered by Akan Okon as Pastor Umo Eno’s academic records from the University of Uyo, the court held that there were no certified true copy of those documents as required by the Section 84 of the evidence act, and the makers were not made to authenticate the documents. The documents were then thrown out by the court.

In conclusion, the Court dismissed the case in it’s entirety as trite, baseless, without merit and lacking in merit.