Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria’s disputed 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, has asked the country’s Supreme Court to overlook issues of technicalities and grant his application where he is seeking to tender fresh evidence against President Bola Tinubu’s victory at the poll.
The former Vice President who is challenging Tinubu’s victory at the presidential poll and the verdict of the election petition tribunal upholding the outcome of the February 25 election, asked the apex court to allow him to present the evidence in the “interest of justice.”
Abubakar is insisting that evidence he has been able to dig up on Tinubu’s academic records, which he says were fraught with discrepancies and forgeries, should be accepted by the court.
Atiku had gone as far as the US Court for the Northern District of Illinois to compel the Chicago State University (CSU) to release Tinubu’s academic records, a request that has since been granted, and is now seeking to introduce these records at the apex court.
In a 20-paragraph affidavit deposed to in support of the application, Abubakar argued that if the apex court granted the application, there would be no need for “any further argument other than the written address in support of same showing that the second respondent is in violation of the provisions of section 137 (1) (j) of the constitution by presenting a certificate disclaimed by the institution from where he purportedly procured same”.
“The Supreme Court, as the apex court and indeed the policy court, has intervened time and again to do substantial justice in such matters of great constitutional importance, as it did in the case of AMAECHI vs. INEC (2008) 5 NWLR (Pt. 1080) 227 and OBI vs. INEC (2007) 11 NWLR (Pt. 1046) 565,” Atiku said in the written affidavit.
“The Supreme Court applied the principle of ubi jus ibi remedium to ensure substantial justice is done in such novel scenarios.
“The need to rebuff, eschew and reject technicality and the duty of court to ensure substantial justice is very germane in this matter, given the gravity of the constitutional issue involved in deciding whether a candidate for the highest office in the land, the office of president of the country, presented a forged certificate or not.
“Presenting forged documents by any candidate, especially by a candidate for the highest office in the land, is a very grave constitutional issue that must not be encouraged”, he added.
Atiku averred that he was not contending whether or not Tinubu attended the Chicago State University but that the president submitted a forged certificate to the electoral commission.
“That the case is not whether the 2nd respondent attended Chicago State University but whether he presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),” he said.
But in a counter affidavit on Wednesday through his team of lawyers led by Wole Olanipekun, Tinubu gave several reasons why his academic records obtained from CSU could not be considered by the Supreme Court.