By Ndubuisi Michaels
Peter Obi Support Network (POSN), has asked the presidential candidate of All Progressive Congress (APC) in the 2023 presidential election, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to withdraw from the race for alleged drug related offences in United States of America, and other allegations bordering on perjury filed against him at a High Court in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
This is contained in a statement by the group’s Deputy Director of Communications, Emmanuel Adesuji, which was made available to newsmen yesterday.
The group said investigations in the public domain has established that the APC candidate was involved in heroin trafficking and money laundering in Chicago during the 1980s and early 1990s.
POSN added that Tinubu’s alleged drug dealing, which was extensively reported in a report titled, “Bola Ahmed Tinubu: From Drug Lord to Presidential Candidate,” published in the West Africa Weekly, was a result of months of collaboration between a legal practitioner, Mike Enahoro-Ebah, and a Chicago law firm, Leahy, Eisenberg & Fraenkel Ltd.
The group further said that there were established discrepancies in some of the information the APC Presidential candidate supplied to the INEC in his Form EC9.
“Information obtained from Tinubu’s U.S. academic and employment records sharply contrasts with the ones given in his INEC Form EC9 and in several media appearances.”
According to the group, different dates of birth, failure to provide evidence of attendance of a school that appears on his academic record, failure to disclose a secondary citizenship, forgery of a university degree certificate, a potential instance of identity theft and others, were the basis for the legal action filed by Enahoro-Ebah.
The group also called Tinubu’s attention to section 29 of the Electoral Act, 2022, which provides that false information on INEC Form EC9 constitute grounds for disqualification of a candidate for an election, provided another contestant files a suit at the Federal High Court seeking to declare the information provided as false.
POSN equally expressed doubt whether Tinubu would face such a challenge within his party, the APC, or from the presidential aspirants in other political parties, but expressed joy that Enahoro-Ebah has taken the bull by the horn by filing a criminal complaint against him, as provided for under section 88 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.
“Under our extant electoral jurisprudence, giving false information, under any guise, in one’s INEC Form EC9 is a solid ground for disqualification of a candidate standing for an election in Nigeria.
“Section 137(1) (j) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, provides that no person shall be qualified for election to the office of the President, if he has presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
“Consequent upon the foregoing, we are calling on the APC candidate to honorably withdraw from the election, as there is damning evidence to show his ineligibility to contest the election.
“He should not wait for any candidate or party to approach the court, because if that happens, it is most likely that the court will order INEC to disqualify him, and that will bad for his reputation. Tinubu should honorably step down and go home,” the group submitted.
