2023: Group asks court to disqualify Tinubu over ‘questionable’ qualification
Some concerned members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have asked a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to disqualify Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a former Governor of Lagos State, and an aspirant , from the ruling party’s presidential primary.
The APC members, under aegis of the Gaskiya Youth Movement of the APC, made the plea in a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/774/2022, filed before the court on Thursday.
While the APC and Tinubu are listed as first and second defendants, respectively, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is listed as the third defendant.
The plaintiffs listed are Umar Iliyasu, Suleiman Baba and Abubakar Adamu who sued for themselves and on behalf of the Gaskiya group.
They asked the court to determine whether Tinubu can participate in the APC primaries or that of any other political party, given his “questionable educational background and date of birth”.
Tinubu is among the leading aspirants in the race for who would become the APC’s presidential candidate, which will be determined in the June 6 convention.
The former governor has had to face some legal hurdles over his qualifications for the 2023 presidential election. He once admitted there were errors in his INEC filings in 1999, but the issues were later addressed.
Earlier this week, a member of the ruling party in Kano State, Sagir Mai Iyali,asked the party’s screening committee to disqualify Tinubu over his educational background.
He wrote a petition against Tinubu, seeking his disqualification by the Oyegun-led committee. Iyali in a letter dated May 17, 2022, demanded the disqualification over the former governor’s “questionable educational qualifications”.
He also claimed that Tinubu allegedly submitted false documents to the Independent National Electoral Commission in 1998.
Iyali said although Tinubu is above the required age to contest the office of president, his age is not known, adding that obscurity surrounding the presidential hopeful could jeopardise the party’s chances at the polls.
In the fresh hurdle coming through the court application, the plaintiffs asked the court to declare that “upon consideration of the relevant laws, Tinubu cannot participate or contest in the primary election on the platform of the first defendant (APC)”.
They are also seeking a “declaration that given the questionable educational background and date of birth of the second defendant (Tinubu) among other questionable issues, the first defendant (APC) cannot allow and/or permit the participation of the second defendant in the primary election for the office of the president”.
The group also wants the court to declare that Tinubu “cannot participate by presenting himself in any primary elections with any political party in Nigeria to be nominated as a presidential aspirant for the 2023 general election scheduled to take place in June 2022″.
Also sought by the plaintiffs is “an order of this honourable court disqualifying the second defendant from contesting in the primary elections on the platform of the first defendant scheduled for 7th June 2022 or any other day as may be fixed by the first defendant having not met the statutory requirements”.
