Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, asked Chicago State University to produce President Bola Tinubu’s academic records, and the request was approved by a federal district court in the Northern District of Illinois.
Chicago State University must give Atiku Abubakar “all relevant and non-privileged documents” within two days, according to a judgement made by US Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Gilbert on Tuesday.
The court’s decision recognised Tinubu’s attorneys’ defence of maintaining their client’s privacy privilege and made it clear that only “non-privileged documents” needed to be produced.
“This issue is before the Court on Atiku Abubakar’s Application pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782 for an Order Directing Discovery from Chicago State University for Use in a Foreign Proceeding (the “Application”) [ECF No. 1]. The application is approved for the reasons outlined below,” Gilbert added.
Tinubu’s academic records had been requested by Atiku, who had brought the court action in the first place.
Atiku and Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party, have appealed the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal’s decision to uphold Tinubu’s victory on 86 grounds before the Supreme Court.
In separate appeals submitted on Tuesday, the two candidates argued that the PEPT decision was incorrect and urged the top court to overturn it and invalidate Tinubu’s victory.
Atiku’s appeal rested on 35 grounds in which he criticised the tribunal’s decision regarding electronic results transmission, votes from the Federal Capital Territory, and other crucial tenets.
Contrarily, Obi criticised the September 6 judgement on 51 different grounds.
