President Bola Tinubu is urging the Supreme Court to reject any new evidence from Atiku Abubakar, specifically the deposition of Caleb Westberg, registrar of Chicago State University (CSU). Tinubu argues that the evidence is irrelevant to the proceedings, as it was not initially presented in the first court trial.
According to Mr Tinubu, the senior court should not tolerate Mr Abubakar’s habit of filing baseless petitions and failing to provide evidence to support his claims until a later time. The president also pointed out that his opponent exhibited the same behavior during the election petitions tribunal.
The Nigerian leader argued that the appellants’ attitude before the lower court was to file a petition first, and then search for evidence during the pendency of the petition and appeal. He referred to the appellants’ submission under paragraph 6.45 of their brief as evidence of this. He further urged the apex court to disregard the evidence of forgery submitted by Mr. Abubakar because it was not included in the records or judgment of the tribunal that upheld his election victory and formed the basis of the plaintiffs’ appeal.
Without waiving our objection to this issue, we would like to state that the arguments presented in relation to the purported ‘Case No. 1:23-CV05009-Re: Application of Atiku for an Order Directing Discovery from Chicago State University…’ are irrelevant to this proceeding, as they are not supported by the court’s record or judgment, and therefore, cannot be accepted by this honorable court. We respectfully request the court to acknowledge this fact.