2023: THE COURT DISMISSES TINUBU’S EXCLUSION PETITION

The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for president, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, was the subject of a lawsuit that the Federal High Court of Abuja dismissed.
In a ruling issued on Tuesday, Justice Obiora Egwuatu ruled that the lawsuit brought by the political group Action Alliance (AA) was prohibited by statute of limitations because it was submitted after the constitutionally permitted 14-day period.

The suit was deemed to be extremely incompetent, depriving the court of the authority to hear it or grant the plaintiff’s requests for relief, according to Justice Egwuatu, who supported the preliminary objection made by the APC and Tinubu.

The judge said that the AA engaged in busy body behavior by attempting to meddle in the internal affairs of another political party while holding that the plaintiff lacked locus standi to bring the lawsuit.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the APC, and Tinubu were named as defendants in the lawsuit with the file number FHC/ABJ/CS/954/2022.

The plaintiff had asked the court, among other things, to rule that Tinubu had lied when he claimed on his INEC FORM CF 001, submitted to INEC in 1999, that he had attended Government College, Ibadan, and the University of Chicago.

It also demanded a declaration that Tinubu’s false claim that the University of Chicago had awarded him a Bachelor of Science degree in economics was a forgery on his “INEC FORM CF 001.”

In light of Section 137(1)(j) of the 1999 Constitution, the plaintiff urged the court to rule that Tinubu was ineligible to run for president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because he allegedly submitted a forged certificate to INEC in INEC FORM CF 001, which he submitted as a candidate in the 1999 general elections for the position of governor of Lagos State.

AA asked the court to issue an order of perpetual injunction preventing INEC from publishing Tinubu’s name as a candidate in the upcoming presidential election while also pleading with the court to rule that the APC (2nd defendantsubmission )’s of Tinubu’s name to the electoral umpire as its 2023 presidential candidate is void and of no effect.

AA also requested a permanent injunction barring INEC from including the APC as a political party on the ballot for the INEC-conducted presidential election in 2023.