Atiku: I Didn’t Falsify Name, Lagos Court Worked on Saturdays in 1970s

•Challenges Tinubu to present evidence Govt College existed in 1970 

•PDP optimistic of victory at Supreme Court

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

Former Vice President and the PDP Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar,yesterday, presented documentary evidence prove that his change of name from Saddiq to Abubakar was done on Saturday.

Addressing a joint press conference at the Atiku  Abubakar Presidential Campaign Office, Paul Ibe, and Phrank Shuibu, said at the time Atiku Abubakar swore to an affidavit to change his name from Saddiq to Abubakar, courts in Lagos state did operate on Saturday.

They, however, called on President Bola Tinubu to present documentary evidence as they did to show that the Government College Lagos, existed in 1970 instead of 1974.

Atiku’s media aides presented several documents to prove that judiciary documents were once signed in Lagos on Saturday.

For instance, they presented a document signed February 12 1974 between Board of Internal Revenue and another by the Nigeria Airways signed on September 8 1973 and  another signed March 17 1973 to prove that the signing of Atiku’s change of name from Saddiq to Abubakar on March 17 1973 was not forgery.

Special Adviser to Atiku, Paul Ibe, said, “Since the discovery of documents with Chicago State University brought to the fore the litany of certificate forgeries and impersonation by President Bola A. Tinubu, there have been attempts by many of his media aides to create a parallel narrative about the public life of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

“It was obvious from the start of their journey into futility that what the media aides and supporters of Bola A. Tinubu were doing was a random bite of the public profile of Atiku Abubakar until they found an item they could chomp with their filthy teeth.

“It was amusing watching them running kiti-kata like a person wey drink water no wan drop cup – as we say in Naija parlance of a restless soul on a fruitless journey.

“So, eventually, they found that the affidavit that Atiku Abubakar deposed to in August 18, 1973, wherein he expressed his wishes to be publicly known as Atiku Abubakar was signed on a Saturday.

“For them, it isn’t important that the person called Bola A. Tinubu was discovered to be the name of a female, nor was it important that Bola A. Tinubu forged a certificate he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission or that Bola A. Tinubu is the Guinea pig student of the Government College Lagos, who was used to test run the school four years before it was founded,” he stressed.

Ibe said all that mattered to President Tinubu aides was to pick a hole in Atiku Abubakar’s public profile.

Quoting late Afrobear musician, he said, “Like the late Fela Anikulapo said: I be thief, you be robber! You are also a thief is not a defence to an accusation of theft. They thought they found someone else to share the inglorious stage of certificate forgery with.

 “So, it was found out that Atiku’s affidavit was signed on a Saturday, and they went into a frenzy; oiled as a diesel train.” Atiku’s media  aide stated.

Ibeh explained that Nigeria as a country of laws, no one single man or woman, no matter how highly placed, was bigger than our laws.

“We hope that this discovery into Atiku’s Saturday affidavit by his own media team will rest this issue and provide the opportunity for Bola A. Tinubu’s team to come clean with its decades of forgeries and lies.

“Nigerians are waiting for them to put an end to this kindergarten Tom and Jerry that has done nothing but brought embarrassment and humiliation to our country and its people,” he stated.

Meanwhile, the PDP said that it was confident that guided by the provisions of the law, the body of evidence, circumstances and facts presented before it, the Supreme Court would deliver justice in the presidential appeal before it.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, said the  PDP believed that the issues of the February 2023 Presidential election; the barefaced violation of rules and the laws, the brazen manipulations and falsifications in perversion of the electoral process had put democracy in a precarious situation.

Ologunagba said Nigerians and the whole world looked forward to the Supreme Court for justice in the hope that the Court would apply the laws, including the express provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the Electoral Act, 2022 and INEC Guidelines and Regulations in delivering substantial justice in the matter.

“The earnest expectation of Nigerians and lovers of democracy across the world is that the Supreme Court will use this case to firmly validate the maxim that the Judiciary is the last hope of the common man,” he said.

He also expressed optimism that the Supreme Court would dispense substantial justice according to law and fact in the appeal.