Supreme Court Rejects Atiku’s Forgery Case Against Tinubu 

By Adeke Chukwuka

The Supreme Court has dismissed the application of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to introduce new evidence against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The court cited a lack of jurisdiction to rule on an application not previously determined by the election petition tribunal.

On Thursday, Justice John Okoro of the Supreme Court denied the application during his ruling in the appeal filed by Atiku and Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi. The appeal contested the Court of Appeal’s decision, which upheld Tinubu’s victory in the election held on February 25.

The Supreme Court said at the previous hearing on Monday that it would reserve judgment and that the parties would be notified of the date.

The final ruling on the two appeals has been scheduled for today, according to a statement from the Supreme Court’s spokesperson, Dr. Festus Akande, released on Wednesday.

In addition to the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal’s (PEPT) faulting verdict, which upheld Tinubu’s election, Atiku requested authorization to tender a copy of the President’s academic records, which Chicago State University had made public.

According to Atiku’s records, Tinubu gave the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) a falsified certificate.

In addition, the former vice president attempted to get the FBI to provide records pertaining to Tinubu’s $460,000 forfeiture case to a court in Washington, D.C.

On Thursday, however, Atiku’s request to present fresh evidence against Tinubu was denied by Justice Okoro.

According to Justice Okoro, the appellants did not request a deadline extension or to amend their appeal and bring up the forgery issue, and even if they had, their requests would not have been accepted.

He also said that the deposition of CSU has no place in deciding the issues in the petition.

“Since the lower court (tribunal) no longer has jurisdiction, this supreme court does not have jurisdiction to entertain the application,” Okoro said.

“It cannot be elongated or stretched beyond the required time and cannot be extended, and the applicants did not ask for an extension of time to amend their application.

“The lower court, which is bound by the provision of Section 285 Sub 6 of the state constitution when seeking to hear election petitions, has lost its jurisdiction, so we cannot look into it.”