The legal teams of President Bola Tinubu and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, will resume a legal battle over the President\u2019s Chicago academic records in a United States court on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A US District Judge, Nancy Maldonado, had on Thursday agreed to stay an order directing Chicago State University to make Tinubu\u2019s academic document available to Atiku\u2019s legal team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hearing came up late Thursday night after the President\u2019s lawyers filed an emergency motion seeking a delay in the implementation of the self-effectuating order directing the CSU to comply with Atiku\u2019s subpoenas till Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atiku is currently challenging the victory of the former Lagos State governor at the 2023 presidential poll and his recent affirmation by an election petition court in Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier, a magistrate, Jeffrey Gilbert, had on Tuesday ordered Tinubu\u2019s alma mater to provide all relevant and non-privileged documents to the applicant, Atiku, within two days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Documents sought by the PDP candidate, through his counsel, Angela Liu, include the record of admission and acceptance at the university, dates of attendance including degrees, awards, and honours attained by the former governor of Lagos State at the university, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as the deadline given by Gilbert drew nearer on Thursday, Tinubu\u2019s lawyers approached Maldonado, arguing that the earlier decision by Gilbert needed to be reviewed by a district judge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The request for a review and delay of the order till Monday was granted by the US district judge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the emergency hearing, Maldonado disclosed that mindful of legal deadlines in Nigeria, she would rule on the matter as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will have a busy weekend. The issue is of process and rules. I\u2019m a rule person. That\u2019s why I\u2019m a judge. This case is quite involved. I am aware of the stakes. It\u2019s more important to me to get this right,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No hiding place<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of the resumption of the case on Monday, however, Atiku\u2019s media adviser, Paul Ibe, said the President should not be hiding anything and that the camp would wait for the court process while whatever is being hidden will be unfolded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibe said \u201cWhat is in that file if it is released that would bring harm that is irreparable to him (Tinubu)? It has become important for Bola Tinubu to let Nigerians know what he is hiding in his academic record at Chicago University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe cannot mortgage the destiny of over 200 million people for the interest of one individual. He is bringing embarrassment to Nigeria, it is shameful and it is a tragedy to have something as simple as releasing your records to be subject to public scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNigerians should begin to take an interest in this matter. Nigerians should be asking questions about what is going on. Why should the President of Nigeria not be a product of due process, transparency and accountability? It has never reached this low and it is unfortunate. We will get him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will await the court process, they can only stall but finally whatever it is that is being hidden will be released.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The legal teams of President Bola Tinubu and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, will resume a legal battle over the President\u2019s Chicago academic records in a United States court on Monday. A US District Judge, Nancy Maldonado, had on Thursday agreed to stay an order directing Chicago State University to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":83887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,6583],"tags":[7903,2500],"class_list":["post-83886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-law","tag-academic","tag-tinubu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83888,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83886\/revisions\/83888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}