The Nigerian Supreme Court on Thursday embraced technicality and declined to accept additional evidence produced by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party in his attempt tp prove the President Bola Tinubu forged the certificate he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
A seven-man panel of the apex court decline the admission in a ruling read by Justice John Inyang Okoro on the application by Atiku for the admission of fresh evidence.
Justice Okoro held that the application violated the provisions of the Electoral Act, which prohibits the amendment of an election petition after 21 days.
“The application to file fresh evidence runs foul of the provisions of the Electoral Act that prohibits the amendment of election petition of 21 days of the election petition,” Justice Okoro said.
He also said that the Supreme Court could not activate Section 22 of the Supreme Court Act after 180 days had lapsed at the lower court.
Recall that Mr. Caleb Westberg, Registrar of Chicago State University, had recently in a deposition affirmed that the school can not authenticate the certificate Mr. Tinubu submitted to INEC.
Atiku had approached the court to grant him the leave to bring more evidence emanating from the Chicago deposition.
Atiku’s counsel Chris Uche (SAN), had urged the court to accept the 32-page document released to his client in the interest of justice.
Details later…
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