Atiku on ‘fishing expedition’, Tinubu tells US court

President Bola Tinubu says Atiku Abubakar’s quest to obtain his academic records from the Chicago State University (CSU) amounts to a “fishing expedition”.

In a reply filed on Thursday, Tinubu said Jeffrey Gilbert, the magistrate, who granted Abubakar access to the records on September 19, lacked the powers to give such an order under section 1782 of the US statute.

Tinubu insisted that the information sought could not be used to support the opposition candidate’s appeal before the Nigerian supreme court as claimed.

He said Abubakar’s insistence to obtain the records from CSU shows that he “misunderstands” the judgement of the presidential election petition tribunal.

“The Nigerian court decision precluded applicant (Atiku) from asserting the theory he seeks to support with discovery here,” he said.

“Applicant’s response notes, but ignores the fact that he included only a single, general sentence about Intervenor being ‘not qualified’ in his 200+ petition in Nigeria.

“The Nigerian court made clear that the applicant’s conduct precluded him from asserting any facts surrounding that generalized statement finding that the applicant either failed to explain “what [he] meant by qualification for the election or simply deliberately kept it back when filing [his] petition.

“Applicant’s failure to include supporting allegations to flush out the general statement in his petition forecloses any opportunity to try to submit new material to the Nigerian supreme court.

He added that the US federal rules “also do not permit a fishing expedition to challenge established fact, and that is a further reason to deny the application”.

The president maintained that “the magistrate erred in granting the Application and ordering Chicago State University to comply with the subpoenas for documents and a deposition”.

“The ruling should be set aside and the application denied,” he added.

The former vice-president had requested the documents on the claim that the records Tinubu submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were not his original certificates.

He added that the documents had been altered, which is the grounds to nullify Tinubu’s election victory.

On September 19, a US magistrate court granted Abubakar’s request and ordered CSU to turn in Tinubu’s records within 48 hours.

Two days later, on September 21, Tinubu filed a motion seeking to stop CSU from releasing his records.

The president further filed an appeal seeking to set aside the ruling of the magistrate court completely.