The deputy governorship candidate of the Labour Party for the September 21 gubernatorial election in Edo State, Oluyinka Faith Alufokhai, has debunked the rumour making the rounds that she submitted a false document to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Recall that INEC recently published the list of governorship and deputy governorship candidates for the election. The list displayed at the INEC office in Benin City and across the LGA offices of the commission contained particulars of candidates and their political parties in line with Section 29(3) of the Electoral Act 2022 which requires the electoral body to publish particulars of candidates for public scrutiny.
Information on Alufokhai’s form EC9 as displayed by INEC indicates that she may have submitted a false document to the commission.
On page 2 of her affidavit sworn at the Epe Division of the High Court on March 22, 2024, Alufokhai stated that she was born on May 18, 1981 in Imo State. Yet on page 4 of the same affidavit, she claimed that she obtained her First School Leaving Certificate in 1981, the same year she was born.
In her reaction, Alufokhai said the discrepancy noticed in her date of birth and her First School Leaving Certificate (FSLC) is a typographical error.
She said that her date of birth is May 18, 1981, and that her FSLC was obtained in 1989.
“My date of birth is 18/05/1981. My FSLC was obtained in 1989. So for my date of birth and FSLC to bear the same year, that’s a typographical error as you can see,” she said in a message to SaharaReporters.
Meanwhile, the leadership of the Labour Party in Edo State reportedly summoned an emergency meeting with the party’s governorship candidate, Olumide Akpata, and his running mate, Alufokhai, over concerns that some of the information contained in their forms EC9 submitted to INEC may have been false and capable of jeopardising their candidacies.
