Jelili Gbadamosi
President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress, APC, have asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to dismiss a suit seeking to disqualify the president from the 2027 presidential election over an alleged forged National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, discharge certificate.
Tinubu and the APC, in their joint counter-affidavit filed on September 9, denied submitting any forged NYSC certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for either the 2023 or 2027 presidential election.
The suit was filed by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the African Democratic Congress, ADC, who are challenging Tinubu’s eligibility to contest the 2027 election.
Atiku and the ADC had urged Justice Inyang Ekwo to order INEC to remove Tinubu and the APC from the list of candidates and political parties for the presidential election.
However, Tinubu and the APC described the suit as incompetent and maintained that the plaintiffs lacked the legal right to institute the action.
The defendants also denied the allegation that they submitted Form CF001 to INEC for the 2023 or 2027 election, as claimed by Atiku and the ADC.
Through the APC Director of Legal Services, Mr Sanusi Samaila, the defendants maintained that the NYSC had never denied issuing a discharge certificate to Tinubu after his service.
They therefore urged the court to dismiss the suit in its entirety.
INEC had earlier filed a preliminary objection against the case on September 7 through its lawyer, Dr Alex Izinyon, SAN.
The electoral commission argued that the suit was statute-barred, disclosed no reasonable cause of action and amounted to an abuse of court process.
INEC further challenged the locus standi of Atiku and the ADC, alleging that they lacked the legal standing to institute the action.
The commission also accused the plaintiffs of failing to comply with the mandatory written deposition requirement under Paragraph 7(1) of the Federal High Court Pre-Election Practice Directions (Amendment) 2026.
INEC additionally challenged the propriety of Reliefs 2 and 3 contained in the originating summons and urged the court to dismiss the case.
The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1888/2026, has consequently placed the eligibility dispute before the Federal High Court, with the defendants challenging both the substance of the allegations and the legal competence of the action.
