The battle to unravel what the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, has called “true identity” in aid of his petition at the tribunal enters crucial stage on Thursday as the Chicago State University has assured that all documents being sought by the applicant in relation to Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, would be released and exposed if granted by the court.
Atiku who has been locked in a battle with Tinubu regarding the actual winner of the 2023 presidential election at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal extended the frontiers of the war to the US in what his camp said is to expose the ‘actual’ Tinubu following several discrepancies in his biodata submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Although Tinubu, who courted controversy regarding his real name, age and academic records since 1999 when he won the governorship seat in Lagos has denied all accusations of deliberately concealing his true identity, Atiku believes certain records in the US where the current president schooled and worked could settle the controversy.
Whichever way, the Atiku camp told THE WHISTLER, “it’s a win-win for us,” as “we are sure the reason Tinubu made an application to deny the release of that information means his true identity would be unravelled.
“Is he a male? What course did he study? When? What’s his date of birth?
“We would know all of those and even more,” a member of the Atiku camp said on Wednesday.
In its deposition to the court, the Chicago State University, CSU, has requested the court to grant “only limited and targeted discovery” of the information however assuring that in the event the court rules otherwise, it’s bound to honour the court decision immediately.
The University however wondered how information being sought by Atiku would aid his petition at the tribunal in Nigeria, it nonetheless said, in the event the Court determines to allow any discovery to proceed here, the University urges the Court to direct only limited, targeted discovery on the University.
“As leave to issue any discovery has not yet been granted, and the Court’s views on what if any discovery is appropriate here under 28 U.S.C. §1782 are not yet known, it is premature for the University to raise objections to the scope of the documents and information sought in Abubakar’s two subpoenas.
“But without limiting further objections, which the University expressly reserves, the University notes that the scope and relevancy of certain of Abubakar’s requests are clearly inappropriate,” the University added.
Citing it said, “For example, Abubakar’s document subpoena Request No. 5 seeks information on diplomas issued by the University for a 44-year period (1979 to the present), and Abubakar’s deposition subpoena Topic No. 7 seeks information on the employment status and reasons for departure of a former employee in the University’s General Counsel’s Office
“Following this Court’s ruling on the Application, should any discovery be permitted, the University will meet and confer promptly and in good faith with Abubakar’s counsel to attempt to address all the University’s concerns.”
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