Wike: Governor’s "50th Birthday" Celebration Shows He Submitted Forged Documents To INEC In 2015

date, stated that the Rivers State governor was born in 1963. But even that date on the affidavit was tampered with, using a pen instead of a typewriter.                                      

A detailed examination of the affidavit also revealed another falsehood. The said Collins Wike claimed that he was a resident of Obio-Akpor Local Government Area at the time he swore to the affidavit. However, Obio-Akpor Local Government Area was not created until May 3 1989, a glaring evidence that the affidavit was fake.

The year the affidavit was sworn to was also the year Mr. Wike claimed to have obtained his West African Examination Certificate. This means he was 22 when he sat for the secondary school leaving examination, something many observers consider very unusual, as most people at the time completed secondary education between the ages of 16 and 18.

For reasons not known, Mr. Wike did not include much information about his primary and secondary education in his INEC form. Although he named the schools he attended, he did not indicate the dates he graduated from both, he, however, included the date he obtained his 1st degree, a B.sc in Political and Administrative Studies which he obtained in 1990 from the University of Port Harcourt, that will put his age at 27th if his INEC form date of birth were valid. Curiously, Wike did not attach a "Discharge Certificate" to his INEC form to show where did his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) as required by law. He included his his Law Degree certificate from the Rivers State University of Science And Technology that he obtained in 1997 and a call to bar certificate obtained in January 1998.

 On realising that there had arisen some curiosity about his multiple dates of birth, Mr. Wike sought to take the sting out of the matter by jocularly asking guests at his party: "Who told them I am 50?”  Regardless of the rant which was applauded by his guests, he still did not reveal his real age.

A SaharaReporters' Twitter post asking why the governor chose a different date to celebrate his birthday generated a lot of comments. But the governor and his aides did not address the question. An effort to obtain an official position from Mr. Simeon Nwakaudu, the governor's Special Assistant on Electronic Media, was futile.

 In a statement, the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC)  pointed out the fact that Mr. Wike has three birth dates in the public domain.  A Google check shows Mr. Wike's birthday as August 24 1967, while Wikipedia records his date of birth as  December 13 1967. Both platforms inevitably said he is 50 years old. 

But in his own handwriting in 2015, while filing forms he submitted to INEC, Mr. Wike stated he was born on  March 13 1963, a claim he supported with a cooked affidavit.