By Ugo Onuoha
Three significant things happened in Nigeria and about Nigeria in the last 10 days. And many more happened in the past several weeks, all of them speaking to the state of Nigeria. But the most significant, perhaps, was the story that broke on Sunday to the effect that a United States court in Chicago had rejected Nigeria’s President, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s urgent and desperate plea that a district court should strike down a ruling by a magistrate court that his academic records be released by Chicago State University [CSU].
A brief on the processes that led to the court’s ruling on Saturday will be needful. About two weeks ago, Nigeria’s former Vice President, who was a contestant during the February presidential election in Nigeria, had approached a Chicago Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Gilbert for the release on oath of Tinubu’s CSU records.
The magistrate ruled in his favour and ordered that the documents be produced within 48 hours to aid Atiku’s challenge of the declaration by the ‘Independent’ National Electoral Commission [INEC] of Tinubu as President on March 1. The other principal contender in that controversial election who is also in the Supreme Court is the candidate of the Labour Party [LP], Mr. Peter Obi.
The latest development on the global embarrassment of Nigeria on the litigation over Tinubu’s academic records was simply pasted online by the court. It irreverently read- “Minute entry before the Honorable Nancy L. Maldonado: For the reasons stated in the Court’s accompanying Memorandum Opinion and Order, the Court overrules President Tinubu’s objections… and adopts Judge Gilbert’s recommended decision in full.
''In reaching this conclusion, the Court emphasizes that it is expressing no view on the merits of Mr. Abubakar’s underlying claims regarding President Tinubu or his graduation from CSU, or the validity of the Nigerian election. Nor is the Court taking any position on what any of the documents or testimony from CSU may or may not ultimately show.
“The Court simply finds, on the narrow question before it, that Mr. Abubakar is entitled to the production of documents and testimony that he seeks from CSU.
''Respondent CSU is directed to produce all relevant and non-privileged documents in response to Requests for Production Nos. 1 through 4… in Mr. Abubakar’s subpoena, by 12 p.m [noon]…, on Monday, October 2, 2023.
“The … deposition of CSU’s corporate designee must be completed by 5:00 p.m. … on Tuesday, October 3, 2023. Given the October 5, 2023 filing deadline before the Supreme Court of Nigeria, the Court will not extend or modify these deadlines.
“Further, the Court notes that at the recent emergency hearing, the possibility of a stay pending an appeal to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals was raised. The Court cautions President Tinubu that any request for a stay before this court will be denied, as the Court finds any stay impracticable in light of the fast approaching Supreme Court of Nigeria deadlines. President Tinubu is, of course, free to request a stay directly from the Seventh Circuit should he file any appeal. Judgment is entered in favor of Atiku Abubakar”.
In spite of the avalanche of judicial precedents in the US including the instances of the demand for a court-ordered release of the academic records of former American Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump by their opponents ahead of their respective elections, no commentators dared to predict the outcomes of the demands. It is not the same thing in Nigeria.
Soon after Judge Nancy L.
Maldonado issued her ruling, and without waiting for what the Discovery will
throw up, Tinubu’s Nigerian lawyers started salivating and celebrating,
claiming that whatever Abubakar gets from Chicago will be dead like dodo and
that they will be discarded by the Supreme Court. They reportedly said in a
Whatsapp group platform that Abubakar had only succeeded in wasting his money
and time in US courts, and falsely raising the hopes of the ‘headless mob’ in
Nigeria.
It
is interesting how the ‘headless mob’ phrase which has been given life and
weight by the fascist-sounding and violence-prone Prof. Wole Soyinka now
frequently appears in public statements of Tinubu supporters and promoters.
Former Supreme Court justice, Mary Odili, made similar comments in the days
after she came under attacks for virtually calling the Presidential Election
Petition Tribunal’s [PEPT] judgment in favour of Tinubu even before the ruling
was made. At a public event on the eve of the PEPT judgment, Mary whose husband
Peter Odili, a former governor of the oil-rich Rivers state, is still enjoying
a perpetual injunction from being probed for the period he was governor
[1999-2007], had praised to high heavens the election petition wizardry of two
of Tinubu’s attorneys. The event where she spoke had nothing to do with
Tinubu’s lawyers.
Back in Nigeria, Tinubu’s lawyers, on Sunday, described Abubakar’s win in Chicago as of no effect. They declared firmly that their Supreme Court will not waste time considering whatever was discovered from CSU. First off the track was one Oluwole Afolabi who told a pro- regime evening newspaper that the ‘Electoral Act does not allow for introduction of new evidence on appeal’, adding that a ‘party cannot spring surprise on his adversary by introducing evidence that was not filed along with the petition’.
On his part Babatunde Ogala, a senior advocate said whatever document Abubakar gets from CSU will no longer be useful. ‘The headless mob is masturbating over nothing. The documents can no longer be used. It is [they are] of no value. We have passed that stage’.
Unless the Supreme Court does the unexpected, Nigerians are well advised to read the positions taken by these Tinubu lawyers as the opening paragraphs of the impending summary dismissal of the petitions of the PDP, LP and the Allied Peoples Movement [APM] next month. Indeed, the dismissal could actually happen this month. The justices of the apex court will not be better than the Appeal Court judges who unashamedly played the role of the Respondents’ defence attorneys including awarding them prayers that they never sought and dismissing the illegal and disqualifying double nomination of Vice President Kashim Shettima as unintentional.
Shettima did not plead during the trial that his brazen attempt to cheat was a mistake. The reality is that Tinubu’s Chicago blues is not to the shame of Tinubu though it is now obvious that the Nigerian President is bereft of any shame. The joke is on Nigeria and its over 200 million otherwise proud people.
We
have been told that we will have to live with it even if it was eventually
discovered that there had been an identity theft, serial certificate forgeries
and perjury. I assume that it will also be the same if any of the two thousand
five hundred documents on Tinubu which the FBI and other US agencies said they
will start releasing in batches from the end of this month, turns out severely
damaging.
Apart from assassinations the worst thing on record that the US had visited on a foreign leader was the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the pursuit and arrest of its ruler, General Manuel Noriega in 1990. He was wanted by the Americans for racketeering and drug trafficking. Before they fell out Noriega was an intelligence asset and paid informant of the CIA from 1967.
The operation to
invade Panama and capture Noriega involved ‘27,684 US troops and over 300
aircraft’. Of course he was captured, extradited, tried, convicted and
imprisoned. And Noriega subsequently died. The Noriega treatment was not
common, not even when America was at its imperial worst. And America allowing
itself to be compelled to promise to release about two thousand five hundred
erstwhile secret documents on a foreign leader is not routine. Heavily
redacting the documents will not remove the stain on the subject. Head or tail,
Nigeria loses.
*Onuoha is a commentator on public issues
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