A United States Federal Court is reportedly fastracking the request of PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar’s to subpoena Chicago State University (CSU) to release President Bola Tinubu’s academic records.
The court is racing against time to do this after learning that Atiku Abubakar has just 14 days to appeal the judgement of the presidential election petitions court at the Supreme Court of Nigeria using the requested records.
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago has now moved up the date for in-person arguments of the lawyers of Messrs Abubakar, Tinubu and CSU from September 15 to September 12, citing “exigent circumstances” of the request.
Judge Jeffrey Gilbert said:
“Upon further reflection, in light of the exigent circumstances presented by the Application [1] and to account for the possibility of any appeal of the Court’s ruling”
“This matter is set for hearing in-person on 9/12/23 at 1:30 p.m. in Courtroom 1386.”
The judge strongly advised lawyers on both sides of the matter to appear in court for the proceeding, with the docket indicating an imminent ruling on the matter during the week.
“If out-of-town counsel want to appear by telephone, they should contact the Court’s courtroom deputy. The Court’s preference, however, is for counsel who will be speaking at the hearing to appear in person.”
To stop any further delay, the Court also asked CSU to file any objections (if any) it might have against the scope of the requested records not later than 5:00 p.m. on September 11. The school had been previously given a longer period to file objections to the subpoenas’ broadness.
Atiku Abubakar asked the U.S. Court to expedite the issuance of the CSU subpoena as he would use the records to file an appeal with Nigeria’s Supreme Court within 21 days.
