President Bola Tinubu has pleaded with the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Easter Division to reverse the order asking the Chicago State University (CSU) to release his academic records to a political opponent, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Tinubu, who argued that Magistrate Jeffrey Gilbert, who gave the order on September 19 in a ruling on an application by Atiku, exercised the power he did not have under the Section 1782 of the US Statute, and prayed the court to reject Atiku’s application.
These formed part of Tinubu’s arguments in his reply to Atiku’s response to his objection to the execution of the order made by Magistrate Gilbert in an application for discovery filed by Atiku.
In the reply filed by his lawyer, Christopher Carmichael, Tinubu contended that “the Magistrate erred in granting the application and ordering Chicago State University to comply with the subpoenas for documents and a deposition. The ruling should be set aside and the application denied.”
He argued that Atiku was merely on a fishing expedition because the documents he is seeking from the CSU can no longer be admitted at the current state of the appeal he filed at the Supreme Court because the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) had deemed them inadmissible.