The All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, has been given a 48-hour deadline by the Center for Reform and Public Advocacy to be detained and face criminal charges for allegedly fabricating his academic credentials to win the nomination.
The organization threatened to file a lawsuit against the IGP for a mandamus order to force him to arrest Tinubu at the end of the deadline if he did not take action.
Agu Kalu, a human rights attorney, and the CRPA’s legal adviser made the warning during a press conference on Saturday in Abuja.
However, when contacted, Babatunde Ogala (SAN), Director (Legal Directorate), Tinubu Campaign Organization, said they were prepared to refute the accusations and threats.
He highlighted that the Electoral Act’s requirements have been properly met by APC’s presidential candidate.
He also added that the Electoral Act is unambiguous, thus there is nothing to answer to
In his form EC 9, which was filed to the Independent National Electoral Commission, the former governor of Lagos State allegedly gave fraudulent information under oath, rendering him ineligible to succeed Muhammadu Buhari as President of Nigeria in 2023, according to Kalu.
The lawyer claimed, among other things, that Bola Tinubu claimed in 1999 to have attended Saint Paul Aroloya Children Home School in Ibadan between 1958 and 1964 and Government College in Ibadan between 1965 and 1969, only for him to later claim in 2022 that he never went to any primary or secondary school in his EC9 form.
Tinubu openly acknowledged inconsistencies in his academic credentials, according to Kalu, who submitted a Certified True Copy of the ad hoc report of the Lagos State House of Assembly, which looked into the former governor in 1999.
He claimed that a petition submitted by the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, a leading legal figure, and social activist, led to a probe of Tinubu’s academic credentials in 1999. (SAN).
He claimed that the CRPA had sent the IGP a petition since June 16 asking for Tinubu to be detained and prosecuted, and bemoaned the fact that up until this point, the police had not seen proper to carry out an arrest.
In line with his demand that the police carry out their constitutional duties without fear or favor, Kalu underscored that nobody was above the law under the constitution.
The activist argued that the police should detain him and file the proper charges against him if it turned out that he had falsely accused Tinubu.
The Abuja lawyer clarified that his group’s call for Tinubu’s arrest was not driven by politics but rather by the need for Nigeria to have the honest leadership it deserves going into the general election of 2023.
The forms that Tinubu submitted to INEC in 1999 and 2022 for verification were among the crucial papers attached to the petition that was delivered to the IGP and acknowledged by his office.
