By Adeleye Kunle
Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, a former presidential aspirant, and a group called Incorporated Trustees of Rights for All International have filed a lawsuit in Abuja’s Federal High Court, seeking a declaration that Nwajiuba is the legitimate presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The former Minister of State for Education, who received only one vote in the APC presidential primary, is also requesting that the votes of former Lagos governor Bola Tinubu and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar be annulled.
The first through sixth defendants in the case with case number FHC/ABJ/CS/942/22 are the APC, PDP, Tinubu, Atiku, the Attorney-General of the Federation, and the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Reasons
The plaintiffs accused Tinubu and Atiku of bribing delegates with dollars and provided a video recording of former Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi lamenting at a recent event that APC primary delegates who sold their votes are now regretting it.
“Who are those who voted in the APC primaries?” he asked. They are regular Nigerians. The small sum of money they received solved their immediate problem, but they now claim they made a mistake; you are now hearing conflicting reports.”
Nwajiuba and RAI presented the court with 25 issues to decide based on the evidence.
The ex-minister specifically requested that the court rule on whether the delegation’s composition violated Articles 11(A), 12(1), and 13(1) of the APC constitution.
The former minister also asked the court to rule on whether the composition of the delegates during the PDP primary violated Sections 33(1) and (5)(c) of the party’s constitution.
Nwajiuba asked the court to rule that the APC and PDP votes were illegal, null and void, and had no effect because of corruption, the selling of delegate votes, and voter inducement.
Tinubu’s Certificate Saga and Income Source
The plaintiffs also asked the court to rule that Tinubu was unqualified to be the APC’s presidential candidate because the funds he used to buy the party’s form could not be traced back to any legitimate business.
He asked the court to declare that Tinubu lacked the minimum qualification to run for President, which is a secondary school certificate, which he had failed to submit in favor of his university certificate.
This article first appeared on Track News.
