It has been confirmed that a civil society group, the Incorporated Trustees of Centre for Reform and Public Advocacy, has been granted permission to bring a perjury case against APC presidential candidate Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, before Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Abuja division of the Federal High Court.
Requested an order of mandamus from the Civil Society Organization (CSO) demanding that Usman Baba, the Inspector General of the Nigerian Police (IGP), begin an investigation into APC presidential flag-perjury. bearer’s
Allegations of oath-tampering against the APC flag-bearer were made in accordance with Sections 31 and 32 of the Police Act, and Section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2015.
According to Justice Ekwo’s decision, the group’s ex parte application to the court was meritorious.
However, Justice Ekwo ordered that the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) and the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), who were cited as the first and second Respondents, be served with all applicable processes in the substantive matter marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1058/2022.
By way of Mr. Ugo Nwofor and his legal team, they explained to a Lagos State House of Assembly investigative report from 1999 that the IGP’s unwillingness to act on their petition against the APC’s presidential candidate had necessitated the litigation.
There is evidence that this organization has petitioned police for action on the findings of the stated investigation, and the court was informed of this fact. Nigerian police, according to Sections 214 and 215 of its amended 1999 Constitution, as well as Section 4 of the Nigerian Police Act, 2020, are mandated by law to “prevent and detect and investigate criminal allegations, whether brought to their attention by individuals or persons,” as well as corporate bodies, institutions and other organizations.
It argued that it possesses the required legal authority to use the court’s jurisdiction to compel the respondents to perform their statutory, constitutional, and public duties.
Following a letter from the late legal luminary, the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi in 1999, the Lagos State House of Assembly had set up an Ad-hoc Committee to investigate the alleged act of perjury, wherein the Committee had stated in its final report that it was “satisfied” that the governor’s educational qualifications, which Nwofor admitted were incorrect, were “incorrect.”
It claims Tinubu lied on oath in order to qualify for the Lagos State governorship race in 1999, in the form CF 001 he submitted to INEC. Further, Tinubu was accused of falsifying “all of the educational certificates he stated in [his] INEC Form CF 001, which [Tinubu] admitted [he] did not hold in [annexure C]”.
According to Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s INEC Form, he claimed to have attended the Government College in Ibadan and the University of Chicago in the United States of America, although this was not the case. As a result, we ask that you begin criminal proceedings against Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as mentioned above by the Lagos State House of Assembly,” it continued.
Because of this, it asks the court to issue an order of mandamus requiring the respondents to comply with Sections 31 and 32 of the Police Act and Section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act of 2015 in relation to an alleged crime detailed in a letter received by respondents on June 16, 2022 and titled: Demand for Criminal Prosecution of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu under Sections 191,192 and 192