2023: Nwajiuba Seeks Disqualification Of Tinubu, Atiku

A former minister of state for education, Emeka Nwajiuba has filed a suit before an Abuja federal high court seeking to nullify the election of Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar  as presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party PDP respectively.

The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/942/2022, was filed alongside the Incorporated Trustees of Rights for All International, a non-governmental organisation.

Other defendants in the matter are the APC, PDP, the attorney-general of the federation, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The plaintiffs, in the suit filed through their lawyer, Okere Nnamdi, alleged that the primary that produced Tinubu as the APC’s 2023 presidential candidate was tainted by corruption and widespread vote buying, adding that the majority of the delegates were bought over with dollars.

In his proof of evidence attached to the suit, Nwajiuba, who polled one vote at the primary which held on June 8, attached a video clip showing where Rotimi Amaechi, former transportation minister, complained that delegates at the APC primary sold their votes.

The plaintiffs also queried Tinubu’s source of income and his educational qualifications.

They urged the court to declare that the third defendant (Tinubu), “who had previously sworn an affidavit in the INEC nomination form declaring that he lost his primary and secondary school documents and benefitted therefrom, cannot in a later affidavit deny and abandon same facts deposed in the previous affidavit and thus falsely contradicting his academic qualifications”.

For Atiku, the plaintiffs alleged that he engaged in vote buying.

They want the court to determine “whether the conduct of the 3rd and 4th defendants (Tinubu and Atiku) and their agents, who by way of corrupt inducement of delegates with US Dollars, which being a foreign currency and non-legal tender in Nigeria under the CBN Act, and the possession which requires declaration under the EFCC Act, used the Dollars for inducement of votes in favour of the 3rd and 4th defendants, have rendered the votes of such delegates cast in favour of the 3rd and 4th defendants at the 1st and 2nd defendant’s special conventions illegal, void and invalid and of no effect whatsoever; and thus inhibiting the 3rd and 4th defendants from benefiting from the proceeds of their own gross illegalities”.

Inyang Ekwo, the presiding judge, on Friday, ordered service of all the relevant court processes as well as hearing notices on all the defendants in the matter.

He also fixed October 6 for hearing of the suit.