The Federal High court in Uyo on Tuesday adjourned till October 24th 2022, for adoption of final addresses in the case by a defeated aspirant, Mr Akan Okon, challenging Pastor Umo Eno’s candidacy as the Governorship candidate of the PDP in Akwa Ibom State.
This follows the testimony from the last witness of the 1st and 2nd (Amo Eno) defendants, the Police Chief Superintendent, Chris Endeley who gave testimony as the third witness, subpoenaed by the court at the instance of the 1st and 2nd defendants as DW3.
Under cross examination by the Counsel to the Plaintiff, Okey Amaechi, SAND , the police detective who works with the department of criminal investigation and intelligence department of the Akwa Ibom State Police Command, told the court he had conducted investigations into the allegations of criminal forgery preferred against the PDP governorship candidate.
He admitted before the court that he never knew Pastor Umo Eno before he was assigned the case by the Commissioner of Police and that he had to proceed to the West African Examinations Council Zonal controller’s office in Ogba, Ikeja in Lagos state where he was furnished with the details of his investigations.
He also confirmed that part of his brief was to investigate the letter of disclamation purportedly written by the zonal office of WAEC in Ikeja to a group known as Association for the Advancement of Democracy in Nigeria, (AADN).
However the counsel to the Plaintiff, Amaechi, insisted that he was not truthful and insisted that the witness manufactured the response from WAEC by himself. “I put it to you that you are telling lies and only manufactured this result to help your friend Pastor Umo Eno”, queried Amaechi.
“My lord, I went to Ogba in Ikeja myself and got the letter of confirmation from the zonal controller of WAEC,” the Police Superintendent insisted.
The West African Examinations Council had on Thursday confirmed before the Federal High Court that Pastor Umo Eno indeed sat for their examinations in 1981 and 1983 respectively.
Irogberachi Ihejirika, a senior assistant registrar with the Uyo office of the regional examination council, appeared as a subpoenaed witness of the court for the 1st and 2nd defendants to tender the results certificates among other documents as exhibits.
The documents include certified true copies of the WAEC General Certificate Examination of June 1981 of Bassey Umo Eno, admitted as D5 by the court, WAEC General Certificate Examination, ordinary level of Dec 1983 belonging to Eno Umo Bassey admitted as D6 by the court.
He also tendered two different letters dated August 8, and September 5, 2022, respectively, and addressed to the criminal intelligence and investigations department of the Nigerian Police Force in Uyo tendered as Exhibit D7 before the court.
Earlier the first subpoenaed witness for the defense team, Barr Emmanuel Essien of the State Ministry of Justice, was in the witness box and presented letters of confirmation of WAEC certificates of Pastor Umo Eno, dated June 27, 2022 and addressed to the Attorney General of Akwa Ibom State.
The two confirmation of results were that of May/June 1981 belonging to 2nd Defendant and that of December 1983.
The counsel to the Plaintiff reserved objections to the documents being tendered while the Counsel to INEC raised no objection.
The court admitted the confirmation of results from WAEC tendered by DW1 as Exhibits D2 and D3.
