Tinubu tells Supreme Court to ignore Atiku’s appeal for lack of focus

• NADECO faults BBC on President’s certificate as chancellor, CSO kick

President Bola Tinubu has told the Supreme Court that the petition by presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the February 25 election is a mere blockbuster with thrilling suspense.

The President, therefore, asked the apex court to throw out the appeal filed against the September 6 judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court.

Part of the grounds canvassed for dismissal of Atiku’s appeal was that it is vague, unwarranted, and has no known focus.

Tinubu, in a response filed on his behalf by a senior advocate, Wole Olanipekun, said the appeal has no legs to stand upon or wings to fly to the direction being sought by the PDP presidential candidate.

He maintained that he defeated Atiku and PDP in virtually all states of the federation, prompting Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare him winner, after lawful collation of results in the presence of agents of the appellant.

Tinubu faulted allegations of malpractices, non-compliance with electoral laws, and non-qualification raised by Atiku, saying the lower court did not find merit in any; hence, they were dismissed.

The President also challenged the competence of Atiku’s petition, insisting what the PDP presidential candidate dressed as statement of facts were mere hearsays with no probate values.

Tinubu asserted that while Atiku claimed to have won the majority of lawful votes cast at the election, he never gave the figure he scored.

He claimed that what Atiku termed ‘expert report’ was a worthless paper, having been produced outside the period stipulated by law, making it inadmissible by any court.

As of the time of this report, the Supreme Court had not fixed a date for hearing of the appeal, marked SC/CS/935/2023.

This came as a pro-democracy group, National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), faulted Wednesday’s report by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the academic records of President Bola Tinubu, saying the move was an attempt to perpetuate colonialism in Nigeria.

It accused BBC of fast losing ethical and journalistic pedigree in a bid to launder the President’s image.

NADECO said it was shocking that the British media outfit chose to engage in an “image-laundering project, despite irrefutable evidence pointing to authenticity of the allegations.”

Executive Director of the group in the United States, Lloyd Ukwu, said this in a statement, yesterday.

The BBC had, on Wednesday, reported that there was no evidence that the Chicago State University’s academic certificates of Tinubu submitted to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2023 presidential election were forged.

But NADECO said: “If the CSU’s registrar, under oath, unequivocally affirmed that the certificate submitted by Mr. Tinubu to INEC is not from their institution, signifying the unequivocal act of forgery, what would BBC call that? Astonishingly, BBC chose to disseminate its own version of the story, specifically designed to deceive the enlightened Nigerian public.”

The statement added: “What is truly confounding, and perplexes NADECO USA, is BBC’s apparent failure to fact-check these glaring discrepancies before presenting its report to the Nigerian people, thus knowingly and maliciously doing a disservice to journalism and to the very people they are meant to inform.”

However, a human rights activist, Tunji Abayomi, urged Tinubu to disregard persons attempting to distract him from governance.

Abayomi, who is the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, in a letter addressed to the President, appealed to him to focus on Nigeria.

Also, a coalition of civil society organisations, led by Ogbole Ene Lilian, at a press conference in Abuja, declared: “We are convinced beyond every reasonable doubt that Tinubu submitted authentic academic certificates and valid information to INEC, and if anyone has doubt over his submissions, the responsible thing to do is come forth with evidence to the contrary.

“It is, therefore, irresponsible and asinine for anybody to doubt the validity of Mr. President’s submissions to the electoral commission based on unfounded speculations, like Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi have done.”