The legal team of the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic party, Atiku Abubakar, has replied President Bola Tinubu whose lawyers recently told the Presidential Election Petitions Court sitting in Abuja that Atiku tendered an expired Guinean passport allegedly belonging to Tinubu to seek the latter’s disqualification as President.
Atiku’s lead counsel, Chris Uche SAN, in his final written address dated July 20, accused INEC of misusing huge funds allocated for the 2023 elections.
According to Atiku, Tinubu’s alleged criminal conviction and his dual citizenship are public knowledge and should have been enough reasons for INEC to disqualify him.
Recall that Tinubu’s team led by Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, did not concede or deny that the president has dual citizenship in their written address.
Nevertheless, Olanipekun argued that even if a Nigerian holds dual citizenship, the laws of the land do not stop such a person from vying for the office of President.
Recall that Chris Uche SAN had on June 25 presented Atiku’s 27th witness, Barrister Mike Enahoro Ebah (PW27), to prove that Tinubu is a dual citizen of Nigeria and Guinea prior to the polls, among other allegations.
Some of the documents he tendered include Tinubu’s certificate of service from Mobil Nigeria Plc, alleged extract of his Guinean passport as well as particulars submitted to INEC when he ran as Lagos state governor.
But giving a final response to the tendered passport (extract), Olanipekun argued that the Guinean passport which the PDP witness claimed to have downloaded from the internet shows that the passport expired in 2020.
Olanipekun told the court that Atiku planned to embarrass his client with an expired document.
“It is all a guesswork, aimed at embarrassing the respondent (Tinubu).
“Assuming without conceding that the respondent was ever issued that passport, it is our further submission that facts relating to citizenship of a foreign country are rooted in the laws of that country, which have to be proved in Nigeria.
“It is submitted further, that even if the respondent has a dual citizenship, which is not conceded, the Constitution does not preclude him from contesting the office of President of Nigeria,” Olanipekun stated.
Replying Olanipekun on that , Uche insisted that with respect to the acquisition of citizenship of Guinea, it remains the case of the petitioners that President Tinubu is not constitutionally permitted to acquire the citizenship of Guinea.
Uche maintained that Section 137 of the 1999 Constitution does not allow a person aspiring to be Nigeria President to acquire citizen of another country.
“The provision of section 137(1) (a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) is very specific a President of the Country, as a symbol and embodiment of the Country, cannot be allowed to declare allegiance to another Country which is the implication of acquiring such a country’s citizenship,” Uche stated, urging the PEPC to disqualify Tinubu on that ground.
On INEC’s claim that it failed to transmit presidential election results in real time due to technical glitches, Uche drew the attention of the court to the testimony of the electoral umpire’s witness, Lawrence Bayode, who said in open court that INEC did not report the glitches to the Amazon Web Services AWS.
AWS is the cloud platform INEC admitted to have engaged to secure the votes cast and uploaded on its portal.
Uche maintained that even though he disagrees that there was a technical glitch on electoral, INEC’s admission that it did not report the issue to either Amazon Web Service or to manufacturers of the technological device, is clear proof that the so-called “technical glitch” was a ruse, unreal, if not self-induced.
“For a project that the Nation committed the sum of over N355 billion, it is unreasonable to expect that the Commission would refuse to report or complain to the suppliers of the devices or providers of the services or hold anyone accountable,” Uche added, faulting INEC Chairman, Yakubu Mahmood for going ahead to announce a winner of the polls when BVAS and IREV were central to the 2023 presidential election in light of the Electoral Act 2022.
He urged the court to cancel Tinubu’s election for substantial non-compliance to the Electoral Act.
