President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has asked the Supreme Court to reject the application by Atiku Abubakar of the PDP seeking to introduce fresh evidence in his appeal of the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC.
Atiku had applied through the US Court and obtained evidence via deposition by representatives of Chicago State University, CSU, evidence suggesting that the certificate submitted to INEC by Tinubu for the 2023 Presidential election was not issued by the university.
The deposition evidence which was made public purports that Tinubu may have forged the very certificate he submitted to INEC to process his application for the candidacy of Presidency.
While CSU affirmed that Tinubu actually enrolled and graduated from the university, it could not vouch for the certificate submitted by Tinubu to the electoral body.
Having successfully compelled Chicago State University to release Tinubu’s academic records, the former Vice President is now seeking to introduce these records at the Supreme Court to brighten his chances of upturning the verdict of the PEPC.
But in his response to the main appeal, President Tinubu said the allegation of certificate forgery was not introduced in Abubakar’s petition at the tribunal.
He said the tribunal was right to strike out some paragraphs of the petitioners’ replies wherein they tried to introduce new issues (including that of certificate forgery) which were not contained in the main petition.
President Tinubu said Atiku’s application which was granted at the US court was alien to the pending appeal before the Supreme Court and does not arise from the record or the judgment of the tribunal.
The president added that the entire appeal lacks merit and should be dismissed.
No date has been fixed for hearing the appeal at the Supreme Court.
