The Federal High Court in Abuja will decide on November 20 whether former Vice President Atiku Abubakar can amend his suit seeking to disqualify President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the 2027 presidential election. Justice Inyang Ekwo fixed the date on Tuesday after lawyers for Atiku and his party, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and for Tinubu, the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) argued for and against the application. The ruling will come 57 days before Nigerians go to the polls on January 16, 2027.
Atiku and the ADC filed the suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1888/2026, on August 14. They allege that the APC submitted a forged National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) discharge certificate for Tinubu to INEC. In a 25-paragraph affidavit, Atiku claimed the certificate bears the name “Tinubu Bola Adekunle” and belongs to another person, and that it has been in use since the 1999 Lagos governorship election. The plaintiffs rely on Section 137(1)(j) of the Constitution, which bars anyone who has presented a forged certificate to INEC from contesting for President.
Tinubu and the APC reject the claim. In a joint counter affidavit filed on September 9 through the party’s Director of Legal Services, Sanusi Samaila, they denied submitting any forged certificate for the 2023 or 2027 elections and said the NYSC had never disowned the certificate. Citing an earlier Supreme Court decision, they argued that forgery can only be proved by a disclaimer from the institution said to have issued the document. INEC has separately challenged the suit on grounds of statute bar, lack of legal standing, absence of a reasonable cause of action and abuse of court process.
The plaintiffs now want to correct what they describe as errors in their original filing. They said the INEC nomination form attached to their affidavit was wrongly described as Form CF001 rather than the current form. They also want to set out the particulars of the alleged fraud, add a written deposition by Atiku and attach clearer copies of their exhibits. Their counsel, Joseph Silas, told the court that no new issue or prayer had been introduced and that the plaintiffs were entitled to the amendment “in the interest of justice”.
The defence sees it differently. “We adopt these processes in urging my lord to dismiss this application as the court is without jurisdiction to grant this,” said Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, who appeared for Tinubu. He argued that the suit was statute barred and that the plaintiffs were effectively filing a fresh action. In a counter affidavit, Moses Adoga, a litigation support officer in Olanipekun’s chambers, said the proposed amendment introduced a new relief and new paragraphs, and that the bid to add particulars of fraud amounted to an admission that the original summons was incompetent.
Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, for the APC, and Alex Izinyon, SAN, for INEC, also urged the court to dismiss the application. In INEC’s counter affidavit, Mendie Akpan, a litigation secretary in Izinyon’s firm, argued that the amendment would either introduce a different cause of action or cure a jurisdictional defect after the constitutional deadline had passed. INEC’s preliminary objection, filed on September 7, remains pending.
Much of the dispute turns on dates. Section 285(9) of the Constitution requires a pre-election suit to be filed within 14 days of the event or decision complained of. Tinubu’s lawyers say the clock started on July 11, when his nomination was submitted to INEC, which would have closed the window on July 25. If the count runs from August 1, when INEC published the particulars of presidential candidates, the deadline would have been August 15, a day after the suit was filed.
There is another timeline to watch. Section 285(10) of the Constitution requires a court to deliver judgment in a pre-election matter within 180 days of filing. For a suit filed on August 14, that limit falls on February 10, 2027, almost four weeks after the scheduled presidential election.
This is not the first time Atiku has challenged Tinubu’s credentials in court. After the 2023 election, he contested the authenticity of Tinubu’s Chicago State University certificate and pursued the university’s records through a United States court. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal against Tinubu’s victory on October 26, 2023.
The current case has already seen procedural skirmishes. Justice Ekwo earlier allowed Atiku to serve the court papers on Tinubu through the APC within seven days, and he has warned lawyers in the matter against discussing it in the media. If the amendment is granted, the defendants will be expected to respond to the amended summons. If it is refused, the suit will proceed on the original papers, with the defendants’ objections still awaiting determination.