Presidency 2023: Tinubu faces fresh suit over certificate scandal

The presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is facing fresh suit on the allegations of certificate forgery. An opposition party, the Action Alliance (AA), had approached a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, demanding an order to retrain the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from including the All Progressives Congress (APC), and its presidential candidate, Tinubu, on the 2023 presidential election ballot, raising concerns of certificate scandal.

Counsel to the Action Alliance, Upkai Ukairo, in the suit,  argued that the APC presidential candidate, Tinubu, is not qualified to participate in the 2023 presidential election, because of allegation of forgery against Tinubu in 1999.

The counsel alleged that Tinubu forged the University of Chicago certificate he submitted in 1999 as proof of his qualification for the 1999 governorship election in Lagos State. The counsel contended  that Tinubu is, therefore, not qualified for election to the office of President of Nigeria.

The council said that the purported “false information provided by Tinubu on his academic qualifications,  was once reported to the Inspector General of Police and the Lagos State House of Assembly, wherein the latter set up a committee, which in its report on page 2 said, “The Governor of Lagos State stated his evidence by admitting full responsibility for some of the needless errors being pinpointed in recent publications, and which formed the basis of the allegations against him”.

The AA, therefore, requested the court to declare as false, Tinubu’s claim that he attended Government College, Ibadan, and University of Chicago on his INEC Form CF 001 in 1999, which he presented to INEC.

The AA demanded  an order of perpetual injunction, restraining INEC from publishing the name of Tinubu as the candidate of the APC in the 2023 presidential election; as well as an order of perpetual injunction, restraining INEC from listing the APC as a political party on the ballot for the 2023 presidential poll.

The AA joined in the Independent National Electoral Commission, the All Progressives Congress and Senator Bola Tinubu, as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd defendants, in the suit.

No date has been set for the hearing of the suit.

Meanwhile, the party is delving intro an issue that has been entertained at the Supreme Court of Nigeria when it came and the judgment did not incriminate Tinubu.