A transcript submitted by South West College on behalf of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was classified as a female gender, to help him be accepted to Chicago State University has been accepted as evidence by the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, and his organization, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), submitted the document along with other supporting documents to back up the claims in their joint petition contesting Tinubu’s designation as the victor of the February 25 presidential election.
A certified true copy of a certificate purportedly issued to Tinubu by Chicago State University, a certificate of service from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) issued in Tinubu Bola Adekunle’s name, a party membership card, and a certificate of service from Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc was among the additional documents offered and in evidence by the petitioners and admitted as exhibits by the court.
The petitioners also provided a printout of Tinubu’s Guinean passport and a notarized decision of the USA Court for criminal forfeiture of Tinubu’s assets in their request for the court to invalidate the election.
A certificate of compliance, a witness statement made under oath, and other papers were also submitted to support the claims made in the petition contesting Tinubu’s designation as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
Chief Chris Uche (SAN), the lead attorney for the petitioners, presented the documents through Mr. Mike Enahoro-Eba, the 27th witness for the petitioners who had been ordered to appear in court and testify, who is a human rights activist and public interest lawyer with an office in Abuja.
President Bola Tinubu, however, stunned everyone by aggressively objecting to the Presidential Election Petition Court’s admission of his degree from Chicago State University as an exhibit.
In support of the case filed against him by the PDP’s Abubakar Atiku and the opposition party, he also fought against tendering and admitting as an exhibit his passport from the Republic of Guinea.
Similarly to this, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) joined forces to oppose the inclusion of the papers.
Nevertheless, despite the adamant objection, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, the court’s chairman, allowed all of the documents to be used as exhibits.
The petition’s three respondents, Tinubu, INEC, and APC, are required to provide justifications for their objections to the admission of the exhibits at the final stage of address.
The witness, who claimed the election went off without a hitch at the Abuja voting location where he cast his ballot, however, claimed he filed a lawsuit against Tinubu in a Magistrate Court as a human rights and public interest attorney, under cross-examination by Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), the lead counsel for INEC.
Earlier, the petitioners tendered certified true copies of Form EC8As, being results of the presidential election from polling units from six states of the Federation.
A breakdown of the documents shows Form EC8As from 25 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Delta State, Forms EC8As from 13 LGAs of Ebonyi State, Form EC8As from 18 LGAs of Edo State, 17 LGAs of Enugu State, 27 LGAs of Imo State, and Form EC8As from 21 LGAs of Kogi State.
In the case with the file number CA/PEPC/05/2023, respondents INEC, Tinubu, and the APC all objected to the validity of the election results and said they would explain why at the final address stage.
But the documents were all accepted by the court and designated as exhibits.
