Politics

Atiku to tribunal: Tinubu, giant in drug-related offences can’t lead Nigeria

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just-concluded election, Atiku Abubakar, says the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, is a giant in forfeiture, drug-related offences, and failure to disclose dual nationality to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Atiku said this via a fresh process he filed before the Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja, in reaction to Tinubu’s response in which he described the former Vice President as a serial election loser.

Tinubu had told the tribunal sitting in Abuja that Atiku couldn’t have won the February 25 presidential election because the PDP presidential candidate was a serial election loser.

Tinubu, in a reply through his team of lawyers led by Wole Olanipekun, SAN, also described the petition filed by Atiku against his election victory as “a gross abuse of court processes”.

Reacting, Atiku, in the process filed by his lead counsel, Chris Uche, SAN, said Tinubu is unfit to lead Nigeria having been indicted for drug-related offences in the United States and made to forfeit a sum of 460,000 dollars as a compromise agreement.

He stated that the President-elect holds dual citizenship of Nigeria and Guinea, having voluntarily acquired the citizenship of the Republic of Guinea.

The PDP presidential flag-bearer also accused Tinubu of not disclosing facts of his constitutional qualifications in his Form EC9 submitted to INEC, contrary to the provisions of the law.

The former Vice President said his identity, comprising age, state of origin, and educational qualifications had never been in dispute.

He insisted that Tinubu was constitutionally disabled from contesting for the office of president.

“The comparison of the second respondent (Tinubu) with the first petitioner (Atiku) who had attained the eminent position of Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for eight years is totally unfounded,” he said.

Atiku stated that he was challenging the declaration of Tinubu as President-elect on the grounds that the former two-term governor of Lagos State and the All Progressives Congress (APC) did not win majority of the lawful votes cast in the February 25 presidential election.

He said Tinubu failed part of the constitutional requirements having failed to secure 25 per cent of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, as constitutionally required.

The former Vice President further argued that the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 presidential election was undue, unlawful, and invalid because the APC candidate did not meet the constitutional requirements.

Atiku said Tinubu deliberately chose not to answer points of substance in the petition and opted for extraneous facts, contradictory, evasive, speculative, and vague assertions.

The Star