The Principal of Sultan Abubakar College, Sokoto, Muhammed Zayyanu Umar, where the Kebbi State Deputy Governor, Senator Umar Abubakar, said he graduated from in 1979 has tendered 15 documents before the governorship election tribunal sitting in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State, to counter the claim.
The principal, while being cross-examined by counsels to the governor and deputy governor, insisted that there were no records in the school to support the testimonial allegedly given to him from the college because his name was not in the list of the 1979 graduates of the college.
The PDP governorship candidate, General Aminu Bande (Rtd), is challenging the victory of the candidates of the APC, Governor Nasiru Idris, and his Deputy, Umar Abubakar, in the last general elections in Kebbi State at the tribunal.
The principal is the first subpoenaed witness to be cross-examined by the respondents’ counsels after the tribunal admitted the 15 documents he tendered.
While giving his testimonies and answering questions from the respondents’ counsels, Barrister Wale Agunbiade (SAN), Yakubu Maikyau (SAN), and others, the principal insisted that based on the documents he submitted to the tribunal, the results of 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982 did not carry the name Umar Abubakar who claimed to be a graduate of the college within the period, particularly in 1979.
He insisted that based on the available records in his office as principal of Sultan Abubakar College, the deputy governor did not finish from the school in 1979.
A Director in the Sokoto State Ministry of Education, Abdulsamad Hamzat Yisa, who was summoned to testify at the tribunal, said the ministry set up a committee to investigate the principal but that they found that the correspondences between the office of the principal and office of Nura Bello and Co chambers were in order.
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