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Tag: atiku

  • Dis-Atiku-lated bomb

    After failing to upturn President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s (PBAT) election at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), the Atiku Abubakar’s legal team conjured the existence of an undetonated bomb in the archives of Chicago State University (CSU) which would blow Tinubu’s presidency to smithereens. The former vice president, who desperately wants to be president believed his advisors; after all some undetonated bombs from the Second World War which ended about 74 years ago, occasionally surface.

    So, for Atiku, no resources should be spared to gain custody of what many detractors of PBAT fancied as the Atiku bomb. Learned counsel Angela Liu and her team who represented Atiku before Magistrate Jeffrey T. Gilbert and Judge Nancy Maldonado of U.S. Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, had the brief to carefully unearth the bomb from CSU within reasonable time, and with the aid of the Nigerian legal team, transfer same into the Supreme Court, and detonate for maximum impact.

    The legal teams must have made a kill from Atiku, considering the desperation and the prize at stake. The former vice president has confirmed as much, in his press conference. Since the Supreme Court is yet to determine the appeal filed by Atiku, it would be prejudicial to importune the learned Justices for a particular outcome. But it is fair to examine the issues canvassed and decided at the American courts, and the strange resort to self-help by Atiku, perhaps in anticipation that his appeal may turn out a wimp.

    After a hefty legal battle, Judge Nancy Maldonado gave a final order that the certificate of PBAT should be released to Atiku’s legal team, as well all other information that are not protected as Private and Confidential Education Records. She also ordered for an official of the college to make a deposition on oath. In furtherance of that, the Registrar of CSU, Caleb Westberg, made a deposition before Counsel Liu, affirming that PBAT attended CSU and graduated with honours in 1979. The transcript released showed that PBAT was indeed a brilliant first class student.

    Westberg affirmed on oath that Bola Tinubu who attended CSU is the same person who is the President of Nigeria today. “Tinubu is an unusual name in the US. He matched the records in the file against the information provided by the student or on behalf of the student.” On whether their student was a female Tinubu, as the social media have been feasting on, the registrar answered: “Tinubu applied to the university as a male and a letter of admission was issued to a male.”

    He further affirmed that “there were materials in Mr. Tinubu’s records that show he was a male in the application to CSU. Mr. Tinubu identified himself as a male. His letter of admission identified him as a male. It says: “Dear Mr. Tinubu.” Despite these glaring depositions, Atiku and his handlers are insisting that a case of forgery has been established in the US, awaiting the concurrence of the Nigerian Supreme Court. But doubtful that his discoveries, if ever admitted, will sway the apex court, Atiku called a press conference to plead his case.

    This column believes that the press conference called by Atiku while his case is pending before the Supreme Court is contemptuous of the hallowed court. It amounts to self-help, and a person who has submitted to the jurisdiction of the court should not engage in such antics. In his speech, Atiku claimed to be fighting a democratic cause, indeed asking traditional rulers, and civil society to join his cause, instead of awaiting the decision of the court on the pending case. The self-help effort is a juvenile effort to intimidate the apex court to admit the documents obtained from CSU.

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    The Atiku legal team is hoping to convince the Supreme Court that the certificate submitted by PBAT is fake even when the registrar never reached such a conclusion. Interestingly, the registrar stated that diplomas or certificates are not a big issue in his country, and they are issued merely as ceremonial documents which are prepared and handed over to a person who legitimately demands for it. As such, the font, the design and the signatories on any certificate and of course the dates on the document would depend on when an application is made for it.

    Atiku is relying on the provision of Order 2, Rule 12(1) of Supreme Court Rules 1985, which under special circumstance allow the apex court to receive and hear fresh evidence, which as an appellate court it is ordinarily precluded from. Atiku’s legal team is hoping to convince the court that such circumstance exists in his favour. But the challenge is a high mountain to climb. And where they are able to convince the court, it will be a challenge what the Supreme Court could make of the deposition, wherein the deponent never admitted that the certificate submitted was forged.

    Rather the CSU said they don’t have it in their record, and affirmed the potential for varied formats of certificates issued to students. Should the court agree that the special circumstance exist to admit the evidence, it will also be interesting to see how the court would resolve the evidential dilemma in the deposition which affirmed that PBAT attended CSU and earned the diploma or certificate in question, the only issue being the authenticity of the actual certificate submitted to INEC by PBAT.

    If the court gets to that juncture, would it be fair to determine such a monumental question based on hearsay, since the maker of the certificate which Tinubu submitted, whom Westberg stated had left the university, was not summoned before Judge Nancy Maldonado or Atiku’s Angela Liu to deny making that document? That ordinarily should be the way to conclusively determine that PBAT has offended the provision of section 137((1)(j) of the 1999 constitution (as amended). It would have been a different kettle of fish, if CSU affirmed as bandied in the social media that PBAT never attended the university.

    Or as some fanciful internet denizens had predicted, that it was one Amodu Tijanni that went into CSU and came out as Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Or that it was a female who went to CSU and her certificate was hijacked by Tinubu. Could it be that Nigerians who have refused to accept the emergence of PBAT, were taken on a roller coaster ride that what would emerge from the deposition, would be akin to a bomb, and it would shake the country to its foundation when detonated?

    In a few weeks, the Supreme Court of Nigeria, would determine the issues canvassed before it, and it would be seen, whether the so-called Atiku bomb will cause a major political earthquake, or it was just a mere damp squib passed off as a bomb.

  • Atiku agonistes

    Atiku agonistes

    The agony of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar runs deep.  His APC f(r)iends claim it’s some virulent post-poll defeat virus.  

    But don’t take that on face value.  Partisan foes love to poke costly jokes — or even outright muck — at one another.  It is what it is!             

    Still, the depressing bile with which Atiku is taking his latest — and final? — loss echoes a refreshing opposite from his North East nativity: with the 2nd Republic Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim (1926-1992), that republic’s chief apostle of politics without bitterness.

    Now, Alhaji Ibrahim had every reason to be sore.  As awaiting presidential candidate for the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), he smacked at a rather strong pan-Nigeria platform. 

    But Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s re-entry into politics turned that pleasure into pain — the famed Zik of Africa, who the iconic cartoon of Jossy Ajiboye (then of the defunct Daily Times group) had dubbed “Bride of the Century”!

    Zik, politically coquettish as ever, wouldn’t say yes or no, to calls by his followers to join the 1979 presidential race.  

    But when eventually Zik hearkened that call, his party of choice was NPP, teeming with mainstream old East politicians, the Christian Middle Belt that often sided with the South against the North in crunchy national matters, and Zik’s 1st Republic Lagos/West confederates, led by Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya.

    With Zik’s entry, the smart Alhaji Ibrahim knew his presidential ticket dream was toast.  He simply moved on and formed a new party, Great Nigeria People’s Party (GNPP).  

    Enter, Politics Without Bitterness: the credo the late Ibrahim lived for the rest of his life.

    Now, compare and contrast his conduct with Atiku’s, who lost an election and is seized with so much gall — a Samson’s complex that suggests the Wazirin Adamawa wouldn’t care a hoot if he crashed everyone (including himself) with his crashed ambition!

    As a historical aside, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, self-named military “president”, would be wondering whatever happened to his new breed political brood, among whom counted former Vice President Atiku and sitting President Bola Tinubu.

    The “new breed” — costly pawns in IBB’s failed self-perpetuation ploy — were to be free of partisan bitterness that crashed the 1st Republic (1960-1966) and the 2nd Republic (1979-1983).

    Yet, here was Ibrahim, a top player back in the 2nd Republic, trumping Atiku — the aging “new breed” of the IBB era — in the ABC of civil and cultured politics! 

    But back to the tumultuous present: Atiku’s conduct (pre-poll, electioneering cum election proper and post-poll) has been as bitter as gall, fired by a rabid desperation.

    Unlike Alhaji Ibrahim that really was unfairly done by — and had a genuine case of being cheated — Alhaji Abubakar’s wild desperation fired his electoral misfortune.

    For personal glory, he bucked a near-national consensus for the presidency to move down South, after the Muhammadu Buhari years (2015-2023).  

    That stubborn streak earned him the PDP ticket all right.  But it also split PDP into three camps: if you discount the internal rebellion of the G-5 (the irked five PDP governors led by Nyesom Wike, then Rivers governor, now FCT minister).  

    So, the G-5 effectively splintered PDP into four: Peter Obi, another demagogue, was leering punter at the Labour Party (LP) — always a shameless harlot at vote seasons, always getting under the sheets with the highest bidder.

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    Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, with his red-capped Kwankwassiyya movement, also whored with the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), though the latter-day explosion in that party has shown the futility of mutual opportunism.  

     Besides, Atiku lost no time to further degrade himself from a national figure to a cheap “northern” hustler for president.  He took the PDP down that abyss, as some northern vassal party, captive to Atiku’s low ethnic agenda.  

    Blinded by acute power lust though, that grim twin-irony was totally lost on him!

    But even within the PDP rump, Atiku had the G-5 to contend with.  While the Arewa Atiku pulled north, the G-5 pulled south — until PDP, a pan-Nigeria party in 1999 (though a cynical Army Arrangement), was well-nigh wiped out in Nigeria’s South!

    So, how can the opposition PDP, split into four bitter camps, delude itself it “won” the presidency on February 25 — with two parts of that headless snake, Atiku and Obi, both claiming “victory”?  How — against the ruling APC that held on to its ranks?

    What hearty pantomime!

    But not even the thunder from the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) could snap Atiku out of his concentrated delusion.  To the United States he headed, manifesting the same Samson’s syndrome that lost him the election.

    The insensitive ex-Vice President that would crash political sensibilities for stark power, is self-same insensate loser, whose US search for a certificate that was never lost, would earn his cherished homeland undeserved jeer and ridicule.  

    Hardly any redemption for he blinded by partisan bile!

    Indeed, after kicking up much dust and burning tonnes of US dollars, all Atiku got from his American voyage was a damp squib.  

    That squib hissed all right.  But if it burnt anyone, it was Atiku himself — in ice cold commonsense rebuke, which really made the point that common sense isn’t common!

    Otherwise, how could the Chicago State University swear on oath — with released academic transcripts to boot — that Bola Tinubu was its graduand, yet you dub a certificate that graduate parades as a “forgery”?

    To complete the Atiku drama of the absurd at his “world press conference”, he summoned one of his lawyers to mouth the inanity: Tinubu’s certificate was a “forgery” because it belonged to a “Black American” — titillating stuff that can only excite starry-eyed Atikulates and their Obidient cousins!

    Still, after all the hurly burly is done, and the battle is lost and won at the apex court, this lawyer had better be prepared to prove his claim, should the Tinubu camp decide to sue!

    Besides, stripped naked by own gambit, Atiku invoked emergency saints for his emergency cause: the late Gani Fawehinmi, SAM, SAN, that started the wild goose chase in 2001.  

    Why, he even played to the gallery over “Muslim-Muslim” ticket. But in his selective recall, he blissfully forgot he was Shehu Yar’Adua’s preference in 1993, over Baba Gana Kingibe, to run with “Christian” Moshood Abiola, after which failure the Yar’Adua faction of the winning camp traded off MKO’s mandate!

    But the cruellest cut of all: Atiku invited Obi and Kwankwaso, the duo that destroyed PDP from without because of own roaring ambitions, to reunite with him on his quaint voyage!

    Kwankwaso didn’t even flatter the call with any response.  But Obi, always the trader, hustling and haggling for the best bargain, instantly balked. Holy Obi was gunning for “justice” — whatever that means — at the Supreme Court!

    Atiku and Obi are two of a kind.  The one stands for everything, via cheap grandstanding.  The other stands for nothing, save empty demagoguery.  

    The polity can do without their shrill distractions.

  • Atiku’s rolling stone

    Atiku’s rolling stone

    The United States university where I taught relied on my journalistic pedigree for nine years before asking for my degree. But the authorities did not seek my certificate. They wanted my transcript.

    So Abubakar Atiku should accept my sympathy for his ignorance. As Jesus pleaded, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Asking for forgiveness does not always move God. Only repentance.

    In the book of Revelation, John prophesied against Christ’s unrepentant foes at Golgotha. “They that pierced him…shall wail because of him.”

    Atiku, still unrepentant, is already wailing. He wailed all the way to Chicago. Before then, he wailed at the Court of Appeal.  He said President Bola Tinubu did not attend Chicago. He and his fellow traveller in a different bus,  Peter G. Obi.  Obi  just told him he is not his Gee when the Adamawa chieftain wanted to recruit him into a coalition of the aggrieved. So, both keep pining and rumbling forward, grumbling and looking askance at each other across bus windows. They will keep looking askance until such a grudge match will roll the buses into a supreme curse. Like a rolling stone with no moss.

    When the PEPC exposed the apology of his lawyers’ logic, they changed the complaint. They trundled to Chicago State University and an American court. The court said to release the transcript. The transcript said one thing, they saw another. It’s like the Bible quote that they have eyes but they see not. Suddenly, the worry is not that Tinubu was a genuine student. The student passed but with a fake certificate? If it is not blaming the student for going to school, it is also blaming him for being a honour’s student. Blaming him for being brilliant. I have heard SANs, party racoons and self-appointed commentators walk that mendacious path. I have called such lawyers SANS sans honour. Jesus poured woe on lawyers for hiding the key of knowledge. For them and other so-called pundits, I invoke author of War and Peace Leo Tolstoy’s call to “Educate the educated.” They squeak rather than speak and pine rather than opine. They emote and elope from reason. It is the contusion of the cerebellum. They are serfs in Atiku’s orbit. We call for their freedom from his fiefdom of lies and desperate malignancy.   It is, at bottom, an opportunism of the paymaster. The payees are willing. Feuding on behalf of a feudalist.

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    For about 48 hours, they kept mum and combed for mischief. Then voila! They saw female instead of male. A gender change in tribute to the LGBTQ world. They even donned the president with gele. They acted like cultural pariahs. In torturing reality, they shuffled papers, mistaking certificate for transcript.

    With mischief, they turned fact without tact. They would not even applaud our first president to graduate with high honours, a parade of As. The so-called SANs say it was a forgery because the deposition said CSU did not issue the certificate. They saw blood. Television and social media buzzed. But they were deluded. It was like Tantalus in Homer’s Odyssey where a fruit hung and no one could touch it. It is the root of the word tantalise.

    They reflected ignorance. They conflated Nigerian system with that of the US. In Nigeria, we ask for certificates. In the US, like in my own case, they ask for transcript. In Warri, we say in pidgin English, “who no go no know.” They are locals with a yokel mentality. Atiku may be a billionaire, but he still knows nothing. Hence, he was allegedly involved in a case with Congressman William Jefferson now in jail over fraud. Because he was alleged to have a hand in funneling $40 million into the US, Congress passed a law on money laundering. And the Adamawa man whose Nigerianness is still in dispute, even in Cameroun, ran from his American home. He was luckier than his wife who got caught and wailed into jail.

    He and his lawyers know nothing about third party agents. It is capitalism. Middlemen now play in the service industry. Not a few things are outsourced today.

    Atiku and his lawyers have travelled. “Nothing develops intelligence like travel,” wrote novelist Emile Zola. Immanuel Kant never saw the world but became known as the father of modern philosophy with his idea of teleology that gave us Hegel, Max, 20th century revolutions and restraint. It is not about their lack of travel. They left their minds at the airport. Psychologists call it arrested development.

    They accept CSU when it suits them. They toss it when it doesn’t. CSU said, Tinubu was male. His admission letter said same. From the campaigns, they have made him into many incarnations. A woman in Chicago. An 80-plus-year-old. A sick and dying man. A Guinean before an African American. A spirit booed in Europe when he was in Nigeria. An African American, just because he filled a form. All African immigrants were forced to fill African American in forms because there was no African box to tick. It’s better now.

    Atiku would do well to show us his own certificates. His PTDF certificate under OBJ. His customs taxi certificate. Certificate for selling Nigerian companies like Aladja Steel.

    He said he did not betray Tinubu. This is the man he openly called “my brother” at a book launch in 2006. He ran to Tinubu for help from OBJ’s koboko. How could he have become AC’s flagbearer without Tinubu? Who knew him in the party? He lied that he did not want Tinubu as his running mate because he was a Muslim? Was he not behind Abiola and Kingibe?

    Where is the tape of that assertion that it was because of the Muslim-Muslim ticket he rejected him? When did Atiku care about such things? Didn’t he tell Arewa that the north should vote for him because he is Fulani, and shun others, including his Gee and Tinubu, who were not northerners? If not for Tambuwal, he was dud as candidate? Is it not the sort of bigotry we are condemning? He is just afraid of Tinubu.

    But fear has now turned into hate. As Shakespeare wrote, “In time we hate that which we often fear.” People who believe him deserve our pity. Truth intimidates them. They are mob morons. No one is saying Atiku had the votes. They call themselves moralists. They were trumpeters of 25 percent. That’s outdated. Certificate is new. They are not ashamed to evangelise a man who did not get the votes.

    They think they are majority because they make high-decibel noise with lies and delusions. They are like the words of T.S. Eliot: “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.” Since they would not accept the truth, wrote Paul in the Bible, God has given them over to a reprobate mind.

    He reminds me of a school principal in Delta State whose team kept yielding goal after goal in a football match. He picked a sheet of paper in fury to write a protest for poor officiating. Just as he wrote the first sentence, he heard an uproar, and asked, “is it a goal again?” Indeed! That is the story of Atiku’s serial failures, an actor of pirouettes and turnabouts, moving headlong to his last and final fall. He knows there is no way open for him. He knows, at 80 plus, no party would look his way in 2027. The last gasp of a drowning man. Like Okonkwo and Oedipus, Atiku sees the end, but he cannot help himself as he cascades downwards. Following how the scales fell in Tinubu’s favour, he should have seen destiny’s hands. Ebenezer Obey’s line should jolt him. Ayanmo mi latowo oluwa ni – My destiny is in God’s hands.

  • CSU certificate saga and Atiku’s voyage of vanity

    CSU certificate saga and Atiku’s voyage of vanity

    By Ifeonu Okolo

    SIR: Nothing can be more deadly in the life of a man than vanity. Vanity has the potential to cause a man to carry out any negative action so long as it can achieve its perceived end.

    Vanity in most cases arises when the life of the individual has become empty. He thus needs something to fill the void. To do this, vanity is always waiting by the side to assist.

    The loss of power is an excrescence of vanity. This comes when the individual has lost the purpose of life on earth and thus is looking for something to keep him busy. To that end, respect for others is thrown to the dogs. A vain man has no respect for others, because, he is motivated by vanity. He does not have respect for himself.

    Otherwise, what could have motivated the former candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the last general election, Atiku Abubakar to go hunting for his opponent’s educational certificates? Nothing but vanity. 

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    After the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal validated the election of President Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar in his loss of power, spurred on by vanity moved to peep into Bola Tinubu’s educational record in Chicago State University (CSU), if not for nothing, but to ridicule the sitting president and cast aspersion at his well-earned reputation.

    Unfortunately for him, his search met a brick wall with the pronouncement of the registrar of the institution, Caleb Westberg who under oath declared that Tinubu was their student and thus graduated from the university with honours.

    But even with that, vanity will not allow Atiku to rest. His desperation for the seat of the nation’s presidency is too strong to give him peace. What next should we expect from him? Probably a probe to find out if the current president was the one who was employed by ExxonMobil and Deloitte.

    If not satisfied with the answer he will receive, he may also want to probe if the sitting president was the same Bola Tinubu who once governed Lagos State.

    Thus far goes vanity in that Atiku Abubakar has forgotten that it is the same Bola Tinubu he is struggling to defame that once offered him the platform of his Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to contest for presidency when his former boss, Olusegun Obasanjo chased him out of the PDP.

    A vain man is never grateful no matter the good done to him. Often, he sees the good done to him as his birth right. Hence the question now is, Atiku, what next? 

    Now that you have received what you were not expecting, I guess you are ready to tender the documents at the Supreme Court with the hope that it would convince the justices to pronounce you the winner of the previous presidential election.

    Otherwise, he should be made to realize that his voyage of vanity can drag him before the same justices for libel and defamation. His actions amount to defamation of the holder of the nation’s highest office; and by extension, Nigeria as a country.

    • Ifeonu Okolo, Asaba, Delta State.

  • Atiku’s humiliating endgame

    Atiku’s humiliating endgame

    By next month, former vice president and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, will be 77 years old. He has slowed down considerably; but if he chooses to contest the presidency a seventh time in the next election cycle, and can presumably find a party to field him, he will be 81 years old. His judgement may be poor, but because he is still mentally alert, despite his halting gait, he probably recognises that his tenacious pursuit of President Bola Tinubu’s mandate may be his last chance at taking the presidency, an ambition that has defined his politics since 1993. After United States courts compelled the Chicago State University (CSU) to release President Tinubu’s educational records to him, he immediately addressed a press conference, en route the Supreme Court where he is seeking either to be declared as winner of the 2023 presidential election or a rerun to be ordered.

    Neither the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), which ruled against him last month, nor the Supreme Court where he is headed will allow him the freedom he covets to spread or shape the political rhetoric he relishes. At the PEPC, his lawyers had a field day, while he was condemned to making snide remarks and expressing injured feelings on the sidelines. Otherwise, his voice was reduced to hoary whispers. At the Supreme Court, his freedoms will be even more restricted, and the latitude he seeks to enable him declaim upon the integrity of the last presidential poll will be circumscribed by lawyers who monopolise the esoteric legalese that inflate their egos and fetch them their daily bread. Alhaji Atiku knew before addressing the press that he was merely tilting at windmills. He had miscalculated the presidential election by allowing his party to be drawn and quartered by political disagreements and factions shortly before the poll, and he had exacerbated that division by relying almost wholly on the conspiratorial promises of a few diehard regionalists in the presidency who promised to gift him the office. Now, he is too shell-shocked to know exactly what to do with the records obtained from the US, records which he had managed by social media manipulation and regional sentiments to elevate to a pestilential campaign.

    He is right to give the matter his best and probably last shot, including infusing the obtained records with far-fetched deductions, improbable logic, and outright mendacities. The records are of little evidentiary relevance to the tenuous case he had built since he lost; but before the justices give short shrift to the arguments built on those tenuous records, Alhaji Atiku appears determined to shape the narrative, declare some sort of moral victory, appeal to inflamed emotions, and walk into the sunset as a self-declared hero, unbroken by the harshness of the judicial circumstances that ensnared him. He has a certificate, not a degree, in law and masters in international relations; he therefore can’t be so befuddled as not to recognise that his case cannot make an impression on the youngest of magistrates, not to talk of on justices of the Supreme Court needlessly and endlessly provoked by overwork, public insults and jibes. The former vice president knows that the curtains are probably being drawn on his political career. His political denouement, not to say years of dogged pursuit of conflicting and contradictory causes, is counterbalanced if not wholly undermined by his poor judgement. The February 25 presidential poll was his to lose, and he lost it spectacularly, deliberately, arrogantly and convincingly. That loss will not be redeemed or even attenuated by the flimsy case he has desultorily tried to build or by last Thursday’s grandiloquent address that sounded both like a mea culpa and an annus horribilis.

    Many analysts, including highly educated lawyers and writers, simply decided to discountenance the deposition of the Chicago State University Registrar, Caleb Westberg. Worse, they adamantly refused to read the clumsy case Alhaji Atiku’s lawyers built for him, particularly the grounds of his petitions, and the judgement of the PEPC that threw out his case. Slothful, prejudiced and angry, the commentators salve their troubled consciences with questionable and unfounded moralisations. In their fury, they downplay the fact that Alhaji Atiku’s US odyssey bears little relevance, if any at all, to the case he was distinctly unable to make at the PEPC. Indeed, unknown to the baying and judgemental public, the purpose of the foreign educational records excursions was just to provide another leg in the PDP and Labour Party’s efforts to incite public unrest and civil disorder against the presidential election outcome. Shortly before the results were declared last February, and continuously for weeks after the results were published, some notable figures had plotted a national revolt to undermine the election. When that failed, they suffused the results with dubious statistical inferences, suggesting, despite constitutional provisions, that because the total number of votes for the other parties was more than the winner’s votes, the legitimacy of the victory was ineluctably wobbly.

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    Alhaji Atiku’s world press conference, whatever that means, was nothing but a final but doomed effort to see whether harrassed ordinary Nigerians buffeted by economic crisis could be stirred by one last rhetorical dubiety into street revolt. It is not certain how he expected this last effort, which is even more fragile and implausible, and therefore less likely to be heeded, to succeed where previous efforts had failed. The address began with the outright falsehood wherein the former vice president ascribed to himself membership of a ‘generation that worked hard to return the soldiers to the barracks and defend the right of the people to elect and establish…a legitimate government’. It was a disingenuous claim. It was self-righteousness nearly everyone in his audience would snicker at. Under military rule, few paramilitary officers, serving or retired, ever felt emboldened to take issue with dictators. Alhaji Atiku’s ideology was and remains too tenuous and amorphous to impel him to revolt, let alone a principled one. Responding to a reporter’s question on his parting of ways with President Tinubu, which he dated to sometime in 2007, the former vice president said he did not owe President Tinubu any favour for lending him the Action Congress (AC) platform to contest that year’s presidential election. According to him, he also helped his supposed benefactor retain his governorship in 2003 by arresting ex-president Obasanjo’s electoral rapacity. What this ‘convinced democrat and dedicated citizen’ didn’t say was that the then Governor Tinubu won that poll.

    Still determined to whip up emotions, and dragging the ghost of an icon he believed would resonate with his audience, he reminded the public that the late legal luminary and palladium of civil rights, Gani Fawehinmi, began the excursion into ferreting out President Tinubu’s alleged educational discrepancies. That excursion, he said triumphantly in obeisance to Chief Fawehinmi’s ghost, had witnessed its culmination in the US courts’ order to release the records, where, paradoxically, mostly clerical errors were unearthed. From the released documents, it is now crystal clear that President Tinubu schooled in Chicago State University, graduated with honours, was and remains male, is about 70 years old, and the certificate he deposited with Nigeria’s electoral umpire, INEC, was issued by a third-party vendor. Alhaji Atiku knows as surely as day follows night that his lawyers will not make any impression on the Supreme Court justices. The case is virtually over, not because President Tinubu was tidy in record keeping, but because despite the president’s faults, and regardless of public perception of him as a politician and now president, he won the February 25 poll, and nothing significant or substantial had been adduced by either the PDP or LP to negate or undermine that fact. As Chief Justice of Nigeria Olukayode Ariwoola said last week while swearing in new Federal High Court judges, public opinion has no jurisprudential value.

    But just in case some doubts existed in the minds of his audience, Alhaji Atiku beckoned on one of his lawyers to speak to the Tinubu educational records in respect of the case before the Supreme Court. In other words, the former vice president and his lawyers were intent on ascribing value to their evidence and insidiously interpreting the suit. The lawyer, Kalu Kalu, sadly ended up exposing to the public that the former president’s case was indeed standing on no legs at all. Mr Kalu spoke the trivia of President Tinubu’s gender, one of his middle names, Adekunle, the third-party vendor which issued replacement certificate, and other issues that were not pleaded or advanced before the PEPC. In fact, both the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act are clear on how matters of electoral forgery should be litigated, which provisions the Atiku legal team has scrupulously discountenanced. The outcome in the Supreme Court will not be in doubt. What remains to be seen is by how much severity the court will punish the indolence of the petitioners.

    As if his sanctimoniety was not offensive enough, Alhaji Atiku also decided in the last paragraph of his address to mislead the public with his choreographed altruism. The quest (presumably his US odyssey), he said disbelievingly, was not for or about Atiku, it was for the enthronement of truth, morality and accountability in public office. He was lucky Chief Obasanjo was not in the audience as he imprecated his political opponents. The former president would have snorted most derisively as Alhaji Atiku attempted that disagreeable rhetorical flourish, a clear indication that someone disconnected from both reality and the person and politics of his principal wrote those soaring gibberish about the rights of man. And by Alhaji Atiku finally appealing to the oppositional instinct and predilection for violence of both the LP and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), it was established beyond doubt that the former president knew his legal adventure had ended, but was hopeful that he could foment rebellion against the administration in the mould of the attack of election deniers on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Alhaji Atiku claimed he lost his government-related businesses to the vengeful disposition of ex-president Muhammadu Buhari; does he now wish to also lose his freedom?

  • Atiku, PDP seek Supreme Court’s leave to tender CSU registrar’s deposition

    Atiku, PDP seek Supreme Court’s leave to tender CSU registrar’s deposition

    • To also present other documents in Tinubu’s academic record

    The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last presidential election and his party have have asked the Supreme Court for leave to present the deposition made by the Registrar of the Chicago State University (CSU), Caleb Westberg and other documents relating to the academic records of President Bola Tinubu which they obtained from the Chicago State University (CSU).

    The request is contained in a motion on notice filed around 7pm on Friday by the team of lawyers for Atiku and the PDP, led by Chris Uche (SAN), in which they seek two main prayers.

    They are praying the court for:

    *An order granting leave to the appellants/applicants to produce and for the court to receive fresh and or additional evidence by way of deposition on oath from the Chicago State University for use in the appeal, to wit: The certified discovery deposition made by Caleb Westberg on behalf of Chicago State University on October 3, 2023 disclaiming the certificate presented by the 2nd respondent (Bola Ahmed Tinubu) to the Independent National Electoral Commission.

    *And upon the leave being granted, an order of this court recieving the said deposition in evidence as exhibit in the resolution of this appeal.

    Atiku and the PDP stated among others, that the ground from the motion was that it took them time to obtain the deposition.

    They claimed that the documents were relevant to the prosecution of their pending appeal before the apex court.

    Atiku and the PDP stated: “One of the grounds of the appellants/applicants’ petition before the court below is that the 2nd respondent was not qualified at the time of the election to contest the election as required by section 137(1)(j) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (es amended).

    Read Also: CSU: More knocks for Atiku over certificate saga

    “Based on facts available to the appellants/A

    Applicants at the time of filing their petition, the 1st appellant/applicant (Atiku) through his United States of American lawyers, Alexander de Gramont and Angela M. Lin of the law firm of Dechert LLP of 1900 K Sweet, NW, Washington DC 20006-1110, unsuccessfully applied to Chicago State University for the release of copies of the academic records of the 2“Respondent.

    “Given the strict privacy laws in the jorisdiction of Chicago State University, the request for the release of the academic records and certificate issued to the 2nd respondent could not be granted without an order of court and for the purpose of use in pending court proceedings.

    “The 1st applicant through his said US-based Attomeys thereupon brought an action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois – In re: Application of Atiku Abubakar for an Order Directing Discovery from Chicago State University Case No. 23-CV-05099 for an order for the production of documents and testimony for use in a proceeding in a foreign court, seeking documents and testimony from Chicago State University concerning the authenticity and origin of documents purporting to be the education] records of the 2“ Respondent, Bola A. Tinubu.

    “The 2nd respondent applied and was joined in the matter as an Intervenor, vehemently opposing the application.

    “On September 19, 2023, the court issued an order granting the application.

    “Thereafter, the 2nd respondent applied for an emergency stay of the court order, claiming that he would suffer irreparable damage and injury if his educational records were released; which order of stay was granted.

    “On September 30, 2023, the court overruled the 2nd respondent’s objections and ordered Chicago Stste University to produce the documents on October 2, 2023, and to produce a wimess for deposition on October 3, 2023.

    “On October 2, 2023, Chicago State University produced the documents pursuant to the court’s order.

    “On October 3, 2023, also pursuant to the court’s order, Chicago State University provided a witness to give deposition testimony, in which deposition, Chicago State University disclaimed ownership and authorship ef the document that the 2° Respondent presented to INEC, purporting to be ‘Chicago State University certificate’ and also disclaimed issuing any replacement certificate to him.

    “The deposition was not in existence or available at the time of filing the Petition or at the hearing of the Petition.

    “The deposition sought to be adduced is, along with its accompanying documents, such as would have important effect in the resolution of this appeal.

    “The deposition is relevant to this matter, having confirmed that the certificate presented by the 2nd respondent to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did not emanate from Chicago State University, and that whoever issued the certificate presented by the 2nd respondent, did not have the authority of the Chicago State University, and that the 2nd respondent never applied for any replacement certificate nor was he issued any replacement certificate by the Chicago State

    “The deposition which is on oath and deposed to in the presence of the 2nd respondent’s attorney is credible and believable, and ought to be believed.

    “The deposition is clear and unambiguous, and no further evidence is needed to be adduced on it.

    “The evidence is such that could not have been obtained with reasonable diligence for use at the trial, as the deposition required the commencement of the suit in the United States of America before receiving same. It was not possible to obtain the said evidence before the trial at the Court below.

    “The deposition was made on October 03, 2023 after the conclusion of trial at the court below, and was not available to be tendered at the trial.

    “Presentation of a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission by a candidate for election to the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria ts a weighty constitutional matter, requiring consideration by the Courts as custodians of the Constitution.

    “The original certified deposition bas been forwarded to the honourable court by a letter addressed to the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court.”

  • CSU: More knocks for Atiku over certificate saga

    CSU: More knocks for Atiku over certificate saga

    • Go and plan for 2027, former APC spokesman mocks ex-VP
    • Omokri to PDP: ‘We have reached end of our ropes’
    • PDP flag bearer desperate for Muslim-Muslim ticket with MKO 

    Former Deputy National Publicity of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Yekeni Nabena, yesterday told the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, that his heating the polity over pre-election matters will not make him President.

    Nabena said Atiku shoud rather “start preparing for another election in 2027 as usual.”

    The APC was reacting to Atiku’s Thursday press conference during which the former VP sought to discredit the Chicago State University certificate of President Bola Tinubu.

    A PDP member, Reno Omokri, said the party’s insistence on pursuing the CSU certificate issue smacked of desperation.

    “If not for desperation, why would the great PDP that produced Presidents Obasanjo, Yar’adua and Jonathan even consider clutching at such weak straws?” he said in an open letter to the party.

    A group, Muslim Media Watch, said Atiku’s moves depict him as one  too desperate to rule Nigeria.

    Nabena, in his statement in Abuja, said: “Atiku Abubakar should know by now that Nigerians have moved on. The country is now enjoying good governance because this administration is responsive and responsible.

    ”See what is happening across Ministries, Departments and Agencies; Nigerians will no longer wait for months to get their international passport when they apply. Over 204,000 backlog has been cleared within three weeks.

    “Think about the welfare packages for the elderly by the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry, the bold step to remove the fuel subsidy that has held the country hostage for a long time, government intervention in all sectors like Aviation, Health, Transport, Economy, Agriculture and security among others.

    “This Renewed Hope Agenda is already working and Nigerians won’t allow anyone, including Atiku or Peter Obi, to drag the nation back to the desert.”

    Continuing, Nabena said: “The registrar of Chicago State University (CSU) Caleb Westberb never said President Tinubu forged the certificate he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Nigeria

     “Nigeria is a sovereign state, and until the highest court of the land says otherwise, President Bola Tinubu is still legitimately elected and will continue to pilot the affairs of the country.”

     Why PDP pinning all its hope is wrong –Omokri

    The former media aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan said: “It has been said that a person’s worst enemy is the individual who feeds their weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

    “The 2023 election is over. Peter Obi defeated us, not Bola Tinubu.

    “By contesting in an election he knew he could not win, Peter Obi stole away votes that would naturally have come to the Peoples Democratic Party (the Southeast has always voted PDP since 1999. Only 2023 was an exception).

    “That is why we lost. As a true friend of the Peoples Democratic Party, I told Peter Obi this before the election.

    “I also said the same thing to Waziri Atiku Abubakar. I said if we did not find a way to convince Peter Obi not to run, then we would have to take him on head-on because there was not enough space for both him and Waziri Atiku on the plinth of victory.

    “But that is now history. The fact of the matter is that the current trajectory of our party is very and eerily similar to the election denial that prevailed in the Republican Party after the 2020 election.

    “Pinning all our hopes on a smoking gun from Chicago State University that failed to manifest shows that we have reached the end of our ropes. Let us face the truth. AriseTV and other irresponsible media got our hopes up unnecessarily.

    “Chicago State University never denied Bola Tinubu.

    “A meticulous reading of Mr. Westberg’s deposition shows that he affirmed Mr. Tinubu three times as a bona fide graduate they once issued with a diploma certificate.

    “Under normal circumstances, it would be apparent to us that there is no case here. Chicago State University, through its registrar, Mr. Caleb Westberg, has testified under oath that Bola Tinubu, the male now President of Nigeria, was admitted, attended and graduated from their institution.

    “They never denied his credentials. What they said, both in their affidavit and the deposition that followed is that they could not attest to the diploma tendered by Bola Tinubu to the Independent National Electoral Commission, not because Bola Tinubu did not graduate from their university, but because a third party vendor issued it, and certificates are more of ‘a Nigerian thing’.

    “In case members of my party do not know, in November of 2022, this same Mr. Mike Enahoro-Ebah attempted to disqualify Mr. Tinubu on exactly these same grounds, and an FCT Magistrate Court struck out his case without being assigned. And we think the Supreme Court will give credence to what a Magistrate Court dismissed?

    “What do we now want to prove at the Supreme Court, even in the unlikely event we are allowed to present new evidence? That Bola Tinubu forged a diploma for a degree that he legitimately earned?

    “If not for desperation, why would the great PDP that produced Presidents Obasanjo, Yar’adua and Jonathan even consider clutching at such weak straws? It is like saying a man forged a cheque for an account in his name! Bola Tinubu’s political foes have clutched at this straw before in 1999 and 2003 and failed.

    “And that is what we now want to hold onto in 2023? Twenty years after it failed? The people behind this desperation are almost all agents of Peter Obi. They don’t love Atiku Abubakar or the PDP.

    “It is a strategy of using Waziri to fight Asiwaju, hoping they cancel each other and that a rerun election is ordered, which Peter Obi will win. They fail to consider that as of today, that is yes daddily impossible. Waziri Atiku Abubakar would have been a better President than Bola Tinubu. But we were outsmarted by Bola Tinubu.

    “Our redemption will not come from Chicago. It will come from facing reality and ensuring we do not have a divided house in 2027.

    “I have been more loyal to the PDP than those now trying to make something out of nothing. And if I cannot tell my party the truth, then to borrow the words of Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:19, I am of all men most miserable!”

    Where is the forgery? – Akintola (SAN)

    Reacting to the allegation of forgery of the Chicago State University on Arise TV yesterday, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Adeniyi Akintola, said those making such allegation are largely ignorant of the issue at stake.

    His words: “What we have been having regarding Tinubu’s case are comments from mechanics and even painters from every nook and cranny to comment on what they know nothing about, and that has been the base of our own democracy because our judicial system has become too media-driven.

    “The allegation that they have been making—I don’t know if they know the meaning of forgery. I have gone through the entire deposition, and there was nowhere to challenge them to show where in the deposition the registrar mentioned fake or forgery.

    “They have been talking about illegality; at what stage did they discover this illegality? The certificate issue was not before the Court of Appeal.

    “I have gone through their brief argument, and nowhere is this issue of forged certificate mentioned; it was not canvassed or discussed in the court below; it was never raised in court, so we are waiting for them to prove that he forged any documents, and for those who want to unveil a forged certificate, all we can say is good luck to them.

    “The university (CSU) issues degrees, and the diplomas are for ceremonial entertainment, and not many people are willing to collect them.

    “It was the PDP that wanted the certificate, and CSU said they could not certify it.”

    Atiku desperate for presidential seat, says Group

    National Coordinator of the Muslim Media Watch, Alhaji Abdullahi Ibrahim, accused Atiku of “using religion to divide the people of this country purely for selfish interest.”

    He said the former VP’s failure in the last presidential election was destined by God and he should accept it.

    Ibrahim said:”Politicians and their followers that use ethnicity and religion to divide the people of Nigeria are enemies of peace and enemies of this country.”

    Read Also: Troops seize 367,300 litres of stolen crude in one week

     He  warned desperate politicians and their followers to desist from religious and ethnic bigotry.

    ‘Atiku desperate for Muslim-Muslim ticket with MKO’, says X user

    An X (formerly Twitter) user Abubakar Sidiq Usman faulted Atiku’s claim that he (Atiku) has  never favoured Muslim-Muslim ticket in Nigeria.

     In a piece DID I HEAR ATIKU ABUBAKAR SAY HE HAS NEVER SUPPORTED MUSLIM-MUSLIM TICKET, WHEN HE WANTED TO BE A BENEFICIARY OF SAME?

    @MrAbuSidiq said: “In 1993, MKO Abiola, Babagana Kingibe and Atiku Atiku  contested for the presidential ticket of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Jos.

    “During the first ballot, Abiola came first with 3,617 votes, Kingibe came second with 3.255 votes and Atiku came third with 2,066 votes.

    “Not wanting to take chances during the second ballot, Abiola needed the support of the Yaradua group to which Atiku belonged to defeat Kingibe.

    “Abiola, according to Atiku’s then spokesperson, Adinoyi Onujaba Ojo ‘reiterated his promise to make Atiku his return mate’ in return for the support of the Yaradua group.

    “The Yaradua group agreed to Abiola’s offer and Atiku agreed to step down for Abiola in return for the Vice Presidential ticket.

    “This decision he announced himself during his speech just before the second ballot by saying: “Dear national delegates, I very much appreciate your endorsement last night. I remain ever grateful for that endorsement. But in order to ensure a rancour free election tonight, I beg and I plead with you to allow me to discontinue the race.’

    “Abiola eventually won the ticket, but ended up picking Kingibe instead of Atiku as his running mate, as agreed with the Yaradua group.

    “When Atiku’s opinion was sought about that decision, these were his words. ‘I never trusted Abiola. He never kept appointments or promises. So I was not surprised when he reneged on the promise to make me his running mate.’

    “Atiku and other PF leaders went on to campaign for Abiola and contributed to the funding of his campaign,’ Atiku’s spokesperson said, adding that though he was disappointed that he was not made the running mate to Abiola, ‘rather than entrust the affairs of the country to a man like Tofa, Atiku believed the Yaradua group should support Abiola to win the presidency.

    ”Abiola, who became the presidential candidate was a Muslim. Kingibe, who was Abiola’s eventual running mate is a Muslim. Atiku himself, who was to be Abiola’s running mate before Kingibe was eventually chosen is a Muslim.

    “All quotes, including that of Atiku Abubakar were captured by his then spokesperson, Adinoyi Onukaba Ojo in his book, ‘The True Story of Atiku Abubakar,’ published in 2006.”

  • Atiku’s frantic hunt for ‘after-discovered evidence’

    Atiku’s frantic hunt for ‘after-discovered evidence’

    For Atiku Abubakar, the standard-bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), nothing will satisfy him more than to unseat President Bola Ahmed Tinubu either by hook or by crook. His desperation for the plum job drove him all the way to the United States (US) to fish for evidence even after the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) had concluded sitting and reserved judgment. Despite  the tribunal’s September 6 verdict, which threw out his case for lack of merit, he intensified his search for his so-called evidence which, he believes, would make the Supreme Court to reopen the case.

     The Supreme Court is not a court of first instance. It only adjudicates on disputes between individuals and organisations after the cases must have gone through the high and appeal courts. There is nothing special in the Atiku case to make the Supreme Court call for the retrial of his petition against Tinubu’s election. At the PEPC, he challenged the President’s election on four grounds, viz:

    ·         The election of the second respondent (Tinubu) is invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act

    ·         The election of the second respondent is invalid by reason of corrupt practices

    ·         The second respondent was not duly elected by majority of lawful votes cast at the election

    ·         The second respondent was, at the time of the election, not qualified to contest

    Interestingly, the petitioner supplied particulars for the first three legs of his petition, but failed to do so for the fourth. In election cases, petitioners are not allowed to ambush the other side. They must put everything on the table. This is called frontloading so that the respondents will know what they are going to face. Election cases are special. In law, they are known as sui generis (of its own kind). They have their own rules and practice direction which must not be deviated from. Any departure from its rules is usually fatal to the petitioner’s case.

       Atiku slept on his right by his failure to show proof of Tinubu’s non-qualification. He then tried to catch the President and the other respondents unawares by calling a witness, Mike Enahoro-Ebah, who had earlier sought to stop Tinubu from contesting the February 25 election. Ebah’s case was thrown out by an Abuja Federal High Court some months before the election. He became Atiku’s star witness at the tribunal.

      The main thrust of Ebah’s testimony from which Atiku might have got the idea of his fishing expedition was that the President identified himself as a female when he sought admission into the Chicago State University (CSU) in 1977. He claimed that the President forwarded a transcript of the South West College in the US under the name: ‘Bola Adekunle Tinubu’ and identified himself as female. The CSU debunked Ebah’s claim which Atiku is holding on to, in a deposition by its Registrar, Caleb Westberg. In the deposition, which was at the instance of Atiku whose lawyer, Angela Liu, questioned Westberg, the registrar said the university’s record identified Tinubu as male and that his admission letter bore the suffix:  Mr. Tinubu’s lawyers wasted no time in demanding that the ground of non-qualification be struck out since no particulars and facts were provided. This, his lawyers said, amounted to abandonment of that ground of the petition. But the petitioner insisted on its retention, and brought in fresh documents to support the claim. The documents related to the President’s alleged conviction in the US and dual citizenship. Upholding the respondent’s preliminary objection, the PEPC said ‘’the petitioner’s attempt to supply fresh particulars in support of Tinubu’s non-qualification was an attempt to modify or amend the petition, contrary to paragraph 16 (1) (b) of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act… No details whatsoever was given by them of what they meant by second respondent’s non-qualification, so the first respondent (INEC), which was obviously satisfied that the second respondent was qualified to contest the election by the documents he presented to it, also simply joined issues with them in a similar general manner.

    Read Also: Obi rejects Atiku’s invitation for ‘justice’, says I’m in court to ‘reclaim my mandate’

    ‘’It is now through their reply that the petitioner who himself seemed to have had no clear idea of what he meant by second respondent’s non–qualification for the election or simply deliberately kept it back when filing the petition, want to now introduce through their reply at a time when respondents have no further right of responding to them. Such unfair tactics cannot be, and not allowed by our law. It must be noted, too, that under Section 131 of the 1999 Constitution of this country, there are as many as four different qualifications a person must possess before he can contest presidential election and another 10 different grounds that can disqualify such a candidate who has all the four qualifications of Section 131.

    ‘’Therefore, an assertion that merely says that a person is not qualified to contest election by reason of non-qualification, will leave not just the person assailed but put every other person involved, including the court at a loss as to what the pleader has in mind… Still on this issue, I must also not fail to point out that the petitioner was only being clever by half when he claimed in paragraph 2.1 (b) of the reply that he was simply giving, as he puts it, ‘further details’ of the non-qualification of second respondent by averring to the conviction, fine, certificate forgery and dual citizenship of the second respondent that was raised in the reply. He had never given any details of second respondent’s non-qualification and so cannot talk about ‘further details’ let alone hide under such ‘further’ details to smuggle in the new facts they averred in paragraphs 1.2 (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) and 2.1 (b) of the reply.

    ‘’These new allegations of the petitioners are not mere ‘evidence’ in support of the ground of the second respondent’s non-qualification as his counsel also tried to make them. They are facts which can only be contained in the petition itself and not in a petitioner’s reply to the respondent’s defence to the petition’’. Consequently, the tribunal struck out the two witness statements made by Ebah and the documents accompanying the reply ‘’all of which were based on the new facts contained in the impugned paragraphs of the reply in issue’’.

    The PEPC, in deciding the petition on its merit, expunged Ebah’s testimony from its record, declaring that it was bereft of pleadings to sustain it. The law, it is said, does not help the indolent. The petitioner paid for his indolence, yet, it seems he has not learnt any lesson from the verdict. Where will the voyage of discovery to Chicago take Atiku? Is he on a wild goose chase? Atiku believes something good will come out of the fishing expedition as he tries to force the hand of the Supreme Court to reopen the case based on what he believes is ‘’after-discovered evidence’’. Has Atiku and his lawyers made any ‘after-discovered evidence’ that can make the Supreme Court rule in his favour?  How different is this earthshaking ‘after-discovered evidence’ from what he tendered at PEPC, which was expunged by the tribunal?

     At this stage of the case, what is left for the Supreme Court is to consider what the PEPC did, based on the record of proceedings and not on any other extraneous factor that any of the parties may introduce. All that Atiku is seeking to do now, he ought to have done while filing his petition as stated in the PEPC decision. For election cases, according to an essay: ‘An overview of forgery and perjury under the Electoral Act 2022’, written by a lawyer, Olanrewaju Lawal, ‘’the common law concept of forgery and perjury has been technically replaced by the statutory concept of electoral perjury, as contained in Section 29 (5) and (6) and punishable under (8) of the Act’’.

    Lawal noted that raising forgery or perjury as a ground to disqualify a candidate could be a pre- or post-election matter, citing Sections 29 and 134 to back his claim. He argued that for a candidate to be disqualified from contesting, the mens rea (the intention to beat the constitutional requirement) must be established. ‘’Put differently, the electoral law says that before a candidate can be guilty of forgery or perjury in electoral matters, that person must have made false declarations or forged the documents with the intention to meet the constitutional requirements relating to his qualification… forgery or perjury in electoral matters must be for electoral purposes and are not entirely the same under the general criminal law’’.

    According to him, the Supreme Court held in Saleh v Abah that: ‘’Forgery of certificates for the purpose of election and electoral process and forgery under criminal law are not the same issues. Forgery under the Electoral Act is a specific law on forgery or presentation of a forged certificate for the purpose of election…’’

     The so-called after-discovered evidence that Atiku wants to bring may be dead on arrival because it is not different from what he sought to tender at the PEPC, which was rejected. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Rotimi Jacobs, said the CSU documents Atiku got would only be relevant if they contained any evidence contrary to what had earlier been presented by the President’s lawyers. ‘’There are factors; there are guidelines in which fresh evidence can be revealed on appeal. It must be evidence that is not available at the time you pursued the case at the lower court. May be something that came ex-improviso, after the proceedings. So, you don’t admit fresh evidence on appeal. And from what I have read, I do not think the documents can be of any help to them’’. For an appellant to call evidence ex-improviso, he must be able to prove that no human ingenuity could have foreseen the need for it. Is that the case with the Atiku appeal?

     According to a law school report, ‘after-discovered evidence’ is an issue mainly in criminal cases and can only be adduced where (a) it could not have been obtained prior to the conclusion of the trial by the exercise of due diligence (b) it is not mere corroborative or cumulative (c) it will not be used solely to impeach the credibility of a witness and (d) it would likely result in a different verdict or lighter sentence if a new trial is granted. Atiku’s case does not stand a chance of having the benefit of any of these factors. In the US, schools do not place emphasis on diplomas. A graduate can get his diploma through a vendor if he so desires. Since there are many vendors, the diplomas too will be different.

     Moreover, the President has a diploma duly issued by CSU, as contained in an affidavit deposed to by Westberg on July 24. The affidavit came before his deposition by Atiku’s lawyer three days ago. In the affidavit, Westberg averred that CSU provided Tinubu a diploma and subsequently a certified (or official) copy of the diploma. ‘’Both are valid and authentic diplomas of CSU. There are certain differences between the diploma and the certified copy because all diplomas are signed by the current president/board chair. There are also differences in the font and seal on the diploma versus the certified copy because the university updated its font and seal after the diploma was issued. The difference in the date of award on the diploma versus the certified copy is likely the result of human error. The graduation date on the certified copy is typed in by a person and can be inaccurate. In the United States, institutions of higher education often consider the diploma to be a ceremonial document’’, Castberg swore. 

       Atiku has filed 35 grounds of appeal at the Supreme Court. In the circumstance, as a democrat, he should wait for the apex court to determine the matter. But, he is overheating the polity with what some political watchers described as inciting statements. At a press briefing in Abuja yesterday, he called on Peter Obi of Labour Party, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party and other leaders to join him in his ‘crusade’. He said he owed the President nothing, claiming that it ‘’is the President that owes me’’. He claimed to have stopped PDP from taking over Lagos in 2003. Atiku, analysts said last night, was being economical with the truth. They recalled that the President backed him against the late President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007.

     Atiku also spoke of the loss of his company under the Buhari administration, portraying him as a bitter person.

  • Atiku has beaten his tattered drum of shame again, says APC

    Atiku has beaten his tattered drum of shame again, says APC

    The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar allegations against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu academic records as lacking purpose.

    It described Atiku’s comments at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday as nothing but pitiful regurgitation of lies, mindless distortions and deliberate falsehood on his infantile obsession with the academic record of Tinubu.

    Reacting to Atiku’s comments, APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka in a statement in Abuja, said the former Vice President has again beaten his tattered drum of shame.

     The ruling party noted that Atiku’s action was a display of deep rooted animosity towards Tibubu, whom he believed was responsible for his electoral woes in 2007, 2015, 2019 and 2023.

    Berating Atiku’s desperation, the governing party noted that the former Vice President’s action was unbecoming of a statesman who once occupied the second highest office in the land.

    APC observed that with the action of the PDP flag bearer, he “has thrown every decency, decorum, dignity and national respectability out the window on his purposeless judicial voyage of discovery to the United States in search of a magic wand for taking power against the will of the Nigerian electorate loudly expressed in last February’s presidential election.”

    The statement reads: “The All Progressives Congress (APC) is unfazed by the press conference addressed by former Vice President and Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar earlier today. The press conference lacked purpose and delivered nothing except the pitiful regurgitation of lies, mindless distortions and deliberate falsehood on his infantile obsession with the academic record of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. 

    “For several weeks now, Nigerians and the world have watched with incredulity Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s display of utter desperation in his failed bid to become the President of Nigeria. 

    Read Also: PDP leaders shun Atiku’s media conference

    “We believe Alhaji Atiku Abubakar should have known better than to demonstrate gross contempt of the highest court by making public comments on a matter that he has submitted to the court for adjudication. 

    “The major takeaway from his Yar’Adua Centre show, especially at question time, was that Atiku harbours deep animosity towards Tinubu whom he believes was responsible for his electoral woes in 2007, 2015, 2019 and this year.

    “Alhaji Atiku Abubakar holds the unenviable title of Nigeria’s most prolific election loser and longest running presidential candidate in history, and we see his recent US fishing expedition as the last kick of a roundly rejected presidential aspirant. 

    “While we sympathise with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar for spending a lifetime pursuing unrealised dream, we strongly condemn the perfidious road he has taken and the needless negative exposure of Nigeria and the institution of the Presidency in foreign land.”

    Setting the record straight on the deposition of Westberg, the Registrar of Chicago State University, last Tuesday, the ruling party stressed that the registrar maintained that Tinubu unmistaken and unambiguous graduated with honours from Chicago State University. 

    “He also emphatically provided clear answers on all other issues raised which we can sum as follows:

    “That the person who is Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is the same person who attended Chicago State University. 

    “He confirmed that a certain gentleman called Adeniji who had come forward to say he was Tinubu’s classmate was in fact a student at CSU at the same time and they both ran for student union positions.  

    “Mr. Westberg said the diploma certificate, on which the PDP and Atiku seek to gaslight Nigerians and the whole world, is just a ceremonial document and what proved studentship at Chicago State University and in any American university is transcript, not certificate. 

    “Furthermore, he stated that the ‘F’ on the Southwest college certificate, a feeder institution to CSU, which President Bola Tinubu used to gain admission into CSU was a clerical error which could of course happen. He reiterated that Southwest College was a major feeder source for CSU. 

    “He said the person admitted based on the transcript from South West College, was a male Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Westberg also added the courses taken by President Bola Tinubu at Southwest College were consistent with the courses he took at CSU.

    “Westberg further deposed that Accounting is a rigorous field of study. Anyone who did not take the requisite courses at the lower levels could not have done well at CSU. 

    In President Tinubu’s case, he did excellently well at CSU. He graduated with High Honours. That to him point to the fact that the person who attended and graduated from CSU was the same person who went to Southwest College

    “He pointed out that CSU has had at least six Registrars since 1979 and in an affidavit at an Illinois court prior to the deposition said “Chicago State University provided a diploma to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and subsequently provided a certified (or official) copy of that diploma. Both are valid and authentic diplomas of Chicago State University”.

    “He said further that the difference in the date of award on the diploma versus the certified copy is likely the result of human error. The graduation date on the certified copy is typed in manually by a person and can be inaccurate”.

    “Mr. Westberg noted that by practice, CSU does not replace certificates for students as they are issued by 3rd party vendors which is also a common practice by other US universities. The proof of attendance and graduation remains the transcripts. 

    “There is also no part of Mr. Westberg’s deposition where he said that the certificate President Bola Tinubu presented to INEC for his election is fake or was forged. All the insinuations and innuendos in this regard are pure mischief and should be disregarded.  President Tinubu could not have forged a University degree he honourably earned because there is no advantage to derive from such and no incentive to do so.”

    The party further lampooned Atiku for deceiving the court, lying that he needed to use his findings to pursue his appeal at the Supreme Court only to resort to using the same as an instrument of mischief and blackmail in clear contempt of the highest  court of the land.

    APC then urged the former Vice President to  accept his defeat and quietly lick his political wound with some dignity. 

    “Nigerians rejected him at the polls, and he cannot get by subterfuge what he failed to get through the ballot box. 

    “Nigerians validly elected President Tinubu to revamp our economy, restore security, create jobs, provide transformative infrastructure, improve electricity supply and enhance the living conditions of the masses. 

    “President Tinubu has undertaken to serve Nigerians and he will not be distracted by a man who has consistently failed to achieve his self-serving and brutal quest to become Nigeria’s President.”

  • PDP leaders shun Atiku’s media conference

    PDP leaders shun Atiku’s media conference

    In what appeared a crack in their ranks, prominent leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did not attend Thursday’s world press conference called by the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

    Not a single member of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC), including the PDP Acting National Chairman, Amb Umar Damagum attended the event.

    Also, none of the party’s 13 serving governors or its members in the two chambers of the National Assembly showed up.

    Explaining his absence at the event, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, said he was not around at the time of the event.

    When our correspondent asked why other members of the NWC did not attend, Ologunagba who spoke on the telephone, said he was not in the position to speak for other members.

    Read Also: BREAKING: I won’t back down on my case – Atiku

    The PDP chairman, Damagum did not pick up our correspondent’s repeated telephone calls to his mobile line. He had yet to reply to an SMS sent to him at the time of filing this report.

    Curiously, none of the NWC members showed up in their offices at the party’s national secretariat.

    Among those who were expected at the event but who did not show up was the PDP vice presidential candidate, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa.

    A few PDP chieftains who attended the conference included the suspended PDP national chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, and a former chairman, Prince Uche Secondus.

    Others were a former Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Tom Ikimi; a former Aviation Minister, Osita Chidoka; a former Imo State Governor, Achike Udenwa; a former PDP National Secretary, Senator Ben Obi; and a former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki who walked in at the close of the event.