Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, has filed a fresh petition with the election tribunal, seeking that President-elect, Bola Tinubu, be disqualified for holding dual citizenship of Nigeria and Guinea.
The Gazette had reported that Mr Atiku, in his earlier petition in March, raised four grounds in which he is challenging Mr Tinubu’s declaration as President-elect.
Mr Atiku, a former Vice President, cited issues of vote suppression, manipulation of ballots and ballot boxes, and manipulation of BVAS (Bimodal Voter Accreditation System) machines, among others.
But in his fresh petition submitted to the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja, Mr Atiku also accused Mr 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.
Mr Atiku said this in his response to Mr Tinubu’s preliminary objection filed before the presidential tribunal court in Abuja.
Meanwhile, Mr Atiku in his response filed through his lead counsel, Chris Uche, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said his identity, including age, state of origin and educational qualifications had never been in dispute.
In addition, the PDP presidential candidate alleged that Tinubu was unfit to lead Nigeria having been indicted for drug-related offences in the United States and made to forfeit a sum of 460,000 dollars as a compromise agreement.
The issue of Mr Tinubu’s Guinean diplomatic passport which surfaced on social media, had elicited wide reactions with many commenting on how the President-elect of Africa’s largest economy lied to the nation’s electoral commission under oath.
A Guinean ambassador to the African Union (AU) for Agenda 2063, reportedly said that Alpha Condé, a former President of Guinea, had recognised Mr Tinubu as a special envoy.
(Peoples Gazette)
