By Adadareporters
A member of Atiku’s legal team, Mr
Kalu Kalu, says revelations from documents former vice-president Atiku Abubakar obtained from Chicago State University where President Bola Tinubu claimed to have graduated revealed sufficient discoveries to upturn the ruling of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal at the Supreme Court.
Atiku is the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 general election. He is challenging the declaration of Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress winner of the poll.
Kalu stated this during the press briefing held by Atiku on Thursday in Abuja. He said the legal team uncovered five major discrepancies in the academic records of Tinubu during the deposition of the registrar of Chicago State University (CSU), Caleb Westberg.
According to him, “One, on the certificate issued or released by Chicago State University to the lawyers of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Bola Ahmed Tinubu forged the certificate he presented to INEC.
“Two, that the qualifying certificate from Southwest College to Chicago State University bears a female, therefore, the document does not belong to Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“The Chicago State University admission form has a claim that Bola Ahmed Tinubu attended Government College, Lagos, and graduated in 1970, when indeed that school was established in 1974.
“The same document has it that the owner of that document is a black American, and in the document Bola Ahmed submitted to INEC, he denied having dual citizenship, which means it does not belong to him.
“Then, the same document, under deposition, says the “A” in Bola A. Tinubu is Ahmed, but the NYSC certificate Tinubu submitted to INEC says the “A” is Adekunle,” he said.
Atiku had demanded the documents from CSU to back his allegation of certificate forgery against Mr Tinubu.
The allegation of forgery was one of those dismissed by the Presidential Election Petition Court in the suit Atiku filed to challenge the election of Mr Tinubu who was sworn in as president in May.
CSU Registrar, Mr Westberg, made a deposition at the court, giving further details on the documents that were released to Atiku’s legal team earlier.
Meanwhile, Mr Abubakar has said he will only stop fighting Tinubu if Supreme Court rules against him.
According to him, “If the court rules that I am right, fine. If the court rules that he (Tinubu) is right — so that’s the end of the fight because at the moment, we are at the Supreme Court and there is no any other court than the Supreme Court.”
He said the fight against Mr Tinubu is to ensure that constitutional provisions on minimum qualifications for elective positions are adhered to, adding that, “The constitution prescribes the requirements for those who seek the highest elective office in the land.
“It should not take months or, indeed, decades, for the institutions concerned to be able to do their work in establishing the credibility of any certificates presented by candidates for public office.
“We undertook this journey at great cost and for important reasons. The ground rules for legitimate governance in our country need to be upheld, and the reputation of our country is at stake. That affects everyone, Nigerians everywhere.”
