The Supreme Court has rejected the appeal by the Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to tender the deposition he received from Chicago State University (CSU) concerning President Bola Tinubu’s alleged forgery.
Atiku and his party’s application to introduce fresh evidence against Tinubu’s CSU diploma, which he presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was denied by the Apex Court. The grounds for this refusal were that the Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain it because the 180-day timeline for determining election petitions had elapsed.
According to the court, since the time for a trial at the Court of Appeal had passed, the Supreme Court could not accept fresh evidence on appeal.
The court also noted that there was no way the motion could be sent back to the lower court to reexamine the matter. The court stated that it could not perform actions that the lower court was unable to do.
The Supreme Court also ruled that in the petition filed by Atiku, facts of forgery were not pleaded, and no application for amending the petition or extending the time was filed. The court further noted that even if such an application for amendment or an extension of time had been made, it would have been refused.
They also held that Atiku did not raise the issue of certificate forgery in his Brief of Argument.
The Supreme Court further ruled that the conditions for introducing fresh evidence on appeal had not been met by the PDP candidate.
News About Nigeria recalls that the Registrar of CSU, Caleb Westberg, in a deposition, stated that they did not issue the certificate Tinubu submitted to INEC to him.
