Drug, Age Records: Atiku Throws Jibes at Tinubu

Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, on Wednesday hurls malicious jibes at the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of the All Progressives Congress, APC. 

Atiku, who was responding to Tinubu's claim at the Presidential Election Petition tribunal in Abuja said the President-elect was not fit to preside over the affairs of the nation. 

Atiku told the tribunal that though he had been contesting presidential elections since 1993, he has a drug-free record unlike the President-elect. 

“The 1st petitioner, unlike the 2nd Respondent (Tinubu), has consistently been contesting presidential elections, given the 1st Petitioner’s drug-free record, and has never had controversy surrounding his age, circumstances of his birth, state of origin, gender, educational qualification, health status, working career, and citizenship, all issues bordering on constitutional qualification to contest for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” Atiku added in his reply to Tinubu’s preliminary objection to his petition.

Earlier, the President-elect had, in his response to Atiku's petition seeking to nullify his election, painted his political rival as a consistent serial loser that had since 1993 crisscrossed different political parties in search of power. He added that over the course of the hearing, he would show how Atiku’s emergence as a candidate in the February 25 election led to the “Balkanisation” of the opposition PDP.

“The 1st petitioner (Atiku) has been consistently contesting and losing successive presidential elections in Nigeria since 1993, whether at the party primary election level or at the general election; including 1993, when he lost the Social Democratic Party, SDP, primary election to the late Chief M.K.O Abiola; 2007, when he lost the presidential election to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua; 2011, when he lost the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP presidential primary election to President Goodluck Jonathan; 2015, when he lost the APC primary election to President Muhammadu Buhari; 2019, when he lost the presidential election to President Muhammadu Buhari; and now, 2023, when he has again, lost the presidential election to the respondent.

“Further to (iv) supra, it was/is not a surprise and/or not by accident that the electorate rejected the 1st petitioner at the polls of the presidential election held on 25th February 2023,” he added.

But Atiku insisted tha the President-elect had “demonstrated inconsistency as to his actual date of birth, secondary schools he attended (Government College Ibadan); his State of origin, gender, actual name; certificates evidencing Universities attended (Chicago State University).”

“The purported degree Certificate of the 2nd Respondent allegedly acquired at the Chicago State University did not belong to him but to a female (F) described as “F” in the Certificate bearing the name Bola Tinubu.

“The 2nd Respondent did not disclose to the 1st Respondent (INEC) his voluntary acquisition of the citizenship of the Republic of Guinea with Guinean Passport No. D00001551, in addition to his Nigerian citizenship. The 2nd Respondent is hereby given notice to produce the original copies of his said two passports”.