University of Chicago record: Tinubu’s lawyers appeal the judge’s orders release
Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s nominee for president, has won the support of the Northern District of Illinois United States District Court, which has mandated that President Bola Tinubu’s academic record be made available by Chicago State University by Monday (today).
However, Tinubu’s attorneys maintained that the records would not be important in Atiku’s Supreme Court case against Tinubu.
According to The PUNCH, Atiku had already obtained an order from a US magistrate for CSU to provide Tinubu’s academic records to his legal team.
The magistrate, Jeffrey Gilbert, had instructed Tinubu’s alma mater to give Atiku’s legal team access to all pertinent, non-privileged documents within two days.
Tinubu’s record of entrance and acceptance at Chicago State University, dates of attendance, as well as the degrees, accolades, and honors Tinubu received from the CSU, are among the documents requested by the PDP candidate through his attorney, Angela Liu.
However, when the magistrate’s deadline drew nearer, Tinubu’s attorneys petitioned the US high court, arguing that the magistrate’s earlier judgment needed to be reviewed by a district judge.
The US district court ultimately agreed to the request for a review and a postponement of the magistrate’s order until Monday.
Oluwole Afolabi, Tinubu’s attorney in New York, put up two arguments in his motion.
First, contrary to Atiku’s assertion, his academic credentials are not relevant to Nigerian courts since “the Nigerian election proceedings and the Nigerian courts have explicitly been unreceptive to the discovery.”
Atiku’s request “is unduly intrusive because it permits the applicant (Atiku) to conduct a fishing expedition into the intervenor’s private, confidential, and protected educational records,” the lawyer continues, citing this as his second defense.
The former vice president urged the court to completely reject Tinubu’s plea in a new answer that was submitted last Wednesday in Chicago, Illinois.
Maldonado added that CSU did not protest Judge Jeffery Gilbert’s determination that the academic record be made public in a new judgment received by The Punch on Sunday.
The court determined that Tinubu’s private interests in his educational records are outweighed by Atiku’s interest.
Tinubu’s objections to the magistrate’s decision requiring CSU to give Atiku access to his academic records were overruled by the judge.
“For the aforementioned reasons, the court overrules President Tinubu’s objections to Magistrate Judge Gilbert’s recommended ruling, and as a result, adopts the ruling in its entirety,” the memorandum opinion and order stated in part.
Therefore, Mr. Atiku’s application is approved. The court sets an accelerated timeline for discovery completion in view of the impending Supreme Court of Nigeria deadline, which CSU indicated to the court as being October 5, 2023, and based on its claims that it is prepared to abide by the discovery demands and produce a witness.
In response to Requests for Production Nos., Respondent CSU is required to turn over all pertinent, non-privileged documents. By 5:00 p.m. CDT on Tuesday, October 3, 2023, CSU’s corporate designee’s Rule 30(b)(6) deposition must be finished. The Supreme Court of Nigeria will neither extend or change these timeframes given the October 5, 2023, filing date.
The judge made it clear, though, that his decision “is not intended to convey an opinion on the merits of Mr. Abubakar’s underlying assertions regarding President Tinubu or his graduation from CSU, or on the legitimacy of the Nigerian election. The court is also not endorsing anything that the CSU documents or testimony may or may not ultimately prove.
He added, “The court merely finds that Mr. Atiku is entitled to the production of documents and testimony that he seeks from CSU on the limited issue before it.”
National Deputy Youth Leader Timothy Osadolor, a member of the PDP National Executive Council, responded to the ruling by calling President Tinubu’s appeal a pointless detour.
According to Osadolor, “If he was convinced that has had nothing to hide, there was no need for those appeals against the courts.”
He asserts that the US ruling will support Atiku’s Supreme Court appeal.
“Our candidate and our party want to prove that Tinubu is not who he claims to be.”
A spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress, Felix Morka, could not be reached.
Oluwole Afolabi, one of the President’s attorneys, has downplayed the significance of the President’s academic credentials, claiming that they will be useless in Atiku’s Nigerian Supreme Court appeal.
Afolabi responded in a WhatsApp message that PM News published on Sunday, claiming that the Electoral Act forbids the inclusion of fresh evidence during an appeal.
“At the time his petition is submitted, a party must include a list of the papers he plans to rely on. A party cannot suprise his opponent by presenting evidence that was not submitted with the petition, according to Afolabi.
The documents can no longer be used, according to Babatunde Ogala (SAN), Coordinator of the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team. It has no worth. That phase has past.
Whether President Tinubu attended Chicago State University is question number one. Yes, it is the answer. What were his academic standings, secondly? The institution was already.
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