As the Supreme Court gets set to hear appeals seeking to remove President Bola Tinubu from office, the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has said that nothing ought to stop the apex court from accepting his fresh evidence.

Atiku stated this in a reply on point of law he filed to counter objections that President Tinubu, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the All Progressives Congress, APC, raised to query the admissibility of documents that were released to him by the Chicago State University, CSU, in the United States of America.

The former Vice President maintained that the documents he is seeking the permission of the apex court to tender, would establish his allegation that President Tinubu was not only ineligible to contest the election, but was equally involved in certificate forgery.

The documents

The documents Atiku is seeking to tender before the apex court are Tinubu’s academic records that the CSU handed over to him on October 2, 2023.

The 32-page documents were released on the orders of Judge Nancy Maldonado of the District Court of Illinois, Eastern Division, Illinois, United States of America.

The US court had ordered the CSU to release the said documents to Atiku, despite Tinubu’s objection.

However, following Atiku’s request to tender the documents, President Tinubu, INEC and the APC raised separate objections wherein they argued that the Supreme Court could not admit the evidence at this stage of the case.

They argued that the 180 days allowed by the law for hearing of petitions against the outcome of the presidential election, had since elapsed.

Tinubu’s objection

According to them, the apex court, at this stage, lacks the requisite jurisdiction to receive and decide on the fresh evidence since it was not presented within the prescribed 180 days.

In his response to the objections, Atiku, through his team of lawyers led by Chief Chris Uche, SAN, argued that contrary to the position of the respondents, “there is no such constitutional limit of 180 days on the lower court to hear and determine a presidential election petition, such that can rob this Honourable Court to exercise its power in any manner whatsoever.

“The parties are agreed that the Constitution is the fons et origo and the grundnorm, and supersedes any other legislation,” he added.

Besides, Atiku maintained that while tribunals were established to deal with election matters from Houses of Assembly, National Assembly and governorship elections, the Constitution gave the jurisdiction to entertain disputes from presidential elections only to the Court of Appeal.

“Thereafter, the Constitution was intentional and deliberate in setting the 180 days limit only for Election Tribunals, and not for the Court of Appeal. On the other hand, when it came to appeals, the Constitution clearly and expressly extended same to the Court of Appeal.

“The Constitution clearly excluded Court of Appeal in the preceding subsection,” he submitted.

Vanguard