Tinubu and Atiku

If plotted on a chart, the graph of the conflict between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar, the People’s Democratic Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, will be in a zig-zag form. After Chicago State University (CSU) confirmed that Tinubu graduated from the institution, Atiku was not satisfied. He went to court praying that CSU be compelled to release Tinubu’s academic records. Atiku’s plea was granted by magistrate judge Jeffery Gilbert asking the  CSU to release his records to Atiku.

However, the duel continued with Tinubu filing an emergency motion asking Judge Nancy Maldonado to cancel the order by Gilbert. Atiku did not relent; he wanted the records released, still.

For that reason, Tinubu has told a district court in Chicago that Atiku “is merely on a fishing expedition in demanding his academic records from Chicago State University.”

Tinubu said this in his reply filed on Thursday that Gilbert, who gave the order on September 19 in a ruling on an application by Atiku, “exercised the power he did not have under Section 1782 of the US Statute.” The documents Atiku is seeking from the CSU, as Tinubu (in the response signed on his behalf by Oluwole Afolabi, whose law office is based in Staten Island, New York), argued, “can no longer be admitted at the current state of the appeal he filed at the Supreme Court because the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) had deemed them inadmissible.”

Below is Tinubu’s reply to Atiku: