Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the African Democratic Congress presidential candidate, had his request approved by the Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday to serve court documents on President Bola Tinubu via the All Progressives Congress.
Justice Inyang Ekwo approved the request of Atiku and his party while delivering a ruling on an ex parte motion brought by Atiku’s counsel, O.T. Omotayo-Ojo, which sought an order for substituted service on the President.
Atiku and his party, the ADC, are pursuing the disqualification of Tinubu and the APC from taking part in the 2027 presidential election, citing an allegedly forged National Youth Service Corps discharge certificate that was submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The case, numbered FHC/ABJ/CS/1888/2026, lists Tinubu, the APC and INEC as the first, second and third defendants, respectively.
The plaintiffs are requesting that the court order INEC to strike the names of Tinubu and the APC from the roster of candidates and political parties for the 2027 presidential election.
While moving the motion on Wednesday, Omotayo-Ojo informed the court that the application had become essential since the plaintiffs could not carry out personal service of the originating summons and other processes on Tinubu.
Atiku therefore asked the court to allow the documents to be served on the President through the APC, the second defendant in the suit.
Justice Ekwo granted the application.
After Omotayo-Ojo, who was holding the brief of Silas Onu, gave an undertaking that the plaintiffs would complete service within seven days, the judge directed that the processes be served within that timeframe.
The judge then adjourned the suit to September 28 for mention.
At the earlier proceedings on September 1, Onu had told the court that the plaintiffs had still not personally served Tinubu with the originating summons and had requested an order allowing substituted service.
Tinubu, the APC and INEC have, in the meantime, filed responses contesting the competence of the suit and asking the court to dismiss it.
In a joint counter-affidavit submitted on September 9, Tinubu and the APC urged the court to dismiss the suit in its entirety, contending that it was incompetent and that the plaintiffs had no legal standing to bring the action.
The first and second defendants denied submitting any forged certificate to INEC for either the 2023 or the 2027 presidential elections.
Speaking through the APC Director of Legal Services, Sanusi Samaila, they also asserted that they did not submit Form CF001 to INEC for the 2023 or 2027 election, as the plaintiffs claim.↻
The defendants added that the NYSC had never at any point denied issuing Tinubu a discharge certificate upon the completion of his service.
They contended that, contrary to paragraph 27 of the affidavit supporting the originating summons, no constitutional provision had been violated and no injustice had been inflicted on the plaintiffs by the submission of the President’s personal particulars to INEC.
In a written address filed together with their preliminary objection, counsel for Tinubu and the APC, Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, maintained that the forgery allegation amounted to a criminal charge, which must be established beyond reasonable doubt under Section 135(1) of the Evidence Act.
Olujinmi submitted that the settled legal standard for proving a certificate was forged required a disclaimer from the institution said to have issued it.
He referenced an earlier ruling of the Supreme Court, arguing that in the absence of evidence from the institution or body that supposedly issued a certificate or document, disowning its issuance or stating that a portion of it was not produced by it, an allegation of forgery could not stand.
He also referenced the Supreme Court’s position that “in order to prove forgery, or that a document is forged, two documents must be produced viz: the document from which the forgery was (a) made; and (b) the forgery or the forged document.”
The senior lawyer contended that Atiku and the ADC had failed to produce any evidence from the NYSC Directorate disowning the issuance of the discharge certificate to Tinubu.
As a result, he characterized the suit as hypothetical and academic, lacking any real facts.
Olujinmi went on to argue that the suit was incompetent, since it was a pre-election matter. That the plaintiffs had no locus standi to contest Tinubu’s candidacy on the APC platform.
He asked the court to sustain the preliminary objection and strike out the suit.
In the same vein, INEC, through its counsel, Dr Alex Izinyon, SAN, in a preliminary objection filed on September 7, contested the suit’s competence on grounds that included being statute-barred, lack of locus standi, absence of a reasonable cause of action. Abuse of court process.
The electoral commission further argued that the plaintiffs had not met the mandatory written deposition requirement set out in Paragraph 7(1) of the Federal High Court Pre-Election Practice Directions (Amendment) 2026.
INEC also questioned the appropriateness of Reliefs 2 and 3 in the originating summons and asked the court to dismiss the suit.
