The Presidential Election Petition Court on Tuesday evening in Abuja admitted as exhibits the Chicago State University educational documents of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who formally opened his defence in a petition filed against his election by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku.
The educational documents tendered to establish his attendance and graduation at the American University comprised, among others, the admission letter offered to Tinubu by the famous institution.
Through his lead counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun, President Tinubu also tendered his United States visa documents, which indicated that he had severally visited the US unhindered between 2011 and 2021.
Tinubu, who tendered the documents to challenge the allegations of criminality contained in the petition against him, also made available to the court all documents of the Nigeria Immigration Service that cleared him for the US trips.
Also admitted as exhibits by the court is the US embassy’s letter of 4th April 2003, which is a response to a letter from the Nigerian Police dated 4th February 2003, which stated that the embassy had no criminal records of Tinubu in the US.
The documents were admitted in spite of rigorous objections against their respective admissibility by PDP and former Vice President Atiku.
The petition’s first and third respondents, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the All Progressives Congress, made no objections to the admission of any of the documents.
In addition to the educational records, the court also accepted the originating summons of a lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court by the attorneys general of the states of Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, and Sokoto disputing Tinubu’s educational qualifications to run for president in 2023.
Also admitted were newspaper publications on several suits filed against Tinubu by several groups.
The petition’s next hearing has been postponed until Wednesday by Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, the court’s presiding justice.
