Home News Election Petition: I’m Drug-Free, no identity scandals, unlike Tinubu — Atiku

Election Petition: I’m Drug-Free, no identity scandals, unlike Tinubu — Atiku

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Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate for the 2023 election, has claimed that he has been able to run for president of Nigeria since 1993 without encountering any controversy because, unlike Bola Tinubu, the APC candidate and his main rival, he is free of drug and identity scandals.

These details are included in Atiku’s response, which he gave on Wednesday in response to Tinubu and the APC’s response to his petition questioning the conduct and results of the February 25 presidential election.

According to Atiku, unlike Tinubu, his identification, including his age, place of birth, and educational background, has never been a subject of contention.

In his response to Tinubu’s response to his petition, Atiku insisted that Tinubu is constitutionally disabled from contesting for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Amongst others, Atiku alleged that Tinubu is unfit to lead Nigeria having been indicted for drug-related offences in the United States of America (USA) and made to forfeit a sum of $460,000 as a compromise agreement.

In the response filed by his lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, the PDP presidential candidate justified why the declaration of Tinubu as President-elect cannot stand, adding that against the law, “Tinubu holds dual citizenship of Nigeria and Guinea, having voluntarily acquired the citizenship of the Republic of Guinea”.

In a similar vein, Atiku accused Tinubu of not disclosing facts of his constitutional qualifications in his Form EC9 submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), contrary to the provisions of the law.

The petitioner while admitting that Tinubu may be a “Titan and Maestro”, however, said the “President-elect is certainly not a titan and maestro in national stature but in controversies such as age, state of origin, identity, educational qualifications represented by certificates obtained from universities and colleges”.

“The comparison of the second respondent (Tinubu) with the first petitioner ( Atiku) who had attained the eminent position of Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for eight years is totally unfounded”, he said.

Justifying his request for the annulment of the declaration of Tinubu as President-elect, Atiku said that Tinubu and APC never won a majority of the lawful votes cast in the February 25 presidential election.

Amongst others, the PDP presidential candidate maintained that Tinubu failed part of the constitutional requirements having failed to secure 25% of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, as constitutionally required.

He insisted that the return of Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 presidential election is undue, unlawful and invalid because Tinubu did not meet the constitutional requirements as to qualification.

Instead of tackling the issues brought up against him and the disputed election, Atiku said Tinubu deliberately chose not to answer points of substance in the petition and opted for extraneous facts and contradictory, evasive, speculative and vague assertions.

Reacting to another issue raised against his petition, the Atiku claimed his petition did not in any way constitute a gross abuse of any court process, adding that the originating summons of February 28, 2023, filed at the Supreme Court by Adamawa, Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, and Sokoto states have since been discontinued.

At any rate, Atiku said the parties in the suit of the six PDP-controlled states are not the same in his own petition and therefore prayed the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to discountenance the objections and the averments raised against the petition by Tinubu and grant him all the reliefs sought in the petition.

Meanwhile, Media Adviser to Atiku Abubakar, Paul Ibe said the only thing common between Atiku and Tinubu is the year 1993.

He said while it was the year that Atiku started his presidential campaign run, it was also the same year that Tinubu fell to the US justice system over his indictment and conviction for drug trafficking and money laundering for which he forfeited a whopping sum of $460,000.

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