…Says claims on his academic records fabricated
From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
President Bola Tinubu has told the Supreme Court that the claim by former vice president Atiku Abubakar that his academic records are forged and riddled with discrepancies was merely fabricated stories.
Responding to the appeal by Atiku and the PDP before the Supreme Court,
Tinubu said Atiku and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) resorted to cook up allegations against him when they failed to prove that he (Tinubu) was not qualified to have contested the February 25 presidential election.
He therefore urged that the court dismiss the appeal, and affirm the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PDP) which upheld his election.
While maintaining that he was the clear winner of the disputed polls with the highest number of votes, the president stated that he was validly returned as the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
He told the apex court that going by the statistics of the polls, he garnered one-quarter/25% of the total votes in 29 states of the federation, while Atiku and the PDP only managed to secure 25 percent of the total votes in 21 states of the federation, “as against the constitutional requirement of 24.7 states, which is the mathematical results of two-thirds of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT (making 37).”
Tinubu stated that having secured the highest number of valid votes cast and having fulfilled all constitutional requirements in that regard, INEC, had no option but to declare him as the winner of the presidential contest.
He submitted that Atiku and the PDP, being dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, on March 21, approached the PEPC “on trumped up allegations of non-compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022, corrupt practices, non-scoring of the majority of lawful votes cast at the election and non-qualification of the respondent.”