2023: Court To Hear Suit Seeking Tinubu, Atiku’s Disqualification Oct 6

Justice Inyang Ekwo of a Federal High Court in Abuja, has fixed October 6, 2022 to hear a suit seeking to disqualify the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for allegedly acting in breach of the Electoral Act, 2022.

The suit which was instituted by the immediate-past Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, and a non-governmental organisation under the aegis of the Incorporated Trustees of Rights for All International, is equally praying the court to disqualify the candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, over the same allegation.

Justice Inyang Ekwo ordered service of all the relevant court processes as well as hearing notices on all the Defendants in the matter.

Nwajiuba, who is a chieftain of the APC and one of its presidential aspirants, had secured a leave of the court to sue both presidential candidates of his party and that of the PDP.

Specifically, the Plaintiffs, in the suit filed through their lawyer, Mr. Okere Nnamdi, alleged that the primary election that produced Tinubu as the 2023 presidential candidate of the APC, was marred by corruption and massive vote-buying, insisting that majority of the delegates were bought over with dollars.

To strengthen his allegation, the ex-Minister who polled only one vote at the primary election that held on June 8, included in his proof of evidence, a video recording showing the immediate-past Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, decrying that delegates at the APC primary sold their votes.

Besides, the Plaintiffs queried Tinubu’s source of income and his educational qualifications.

They urged the court to declare that Tinubu, “who had previously sworn an affidavit in the INEC nomination form declaring that he lost his primary and secondary school documents and benefitted therefrom, cannot in a later affidavit deny and abandon same facts deposed in the previous affidavit and thus falsely contradicting his academic qualifications.”