A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former National Legal Adviser of the All Progressives Congress, Babatunde Ogala, SAN, has said that the questions surrounding President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s academic credentials were litigated up to the Supreme Court and settled, and that no court in Nigeria has found that the President forged any document or perjured himself.
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Ogala spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today, where he appeared alongside Kalu Kalu, a lawyer and member of the African Democratic Congress, who has been the counsel in several suits challenging the President’s qualification. The debate followed the release by the Independent National Electoral Commission of the credentials of candidates ahead of the 2027 elections.
Invited to respond to the allegations, the senior advocate said he would not be drawn into what he regarded as collateral matters.
“For me, I think I would rather not be distracted from the main focus of the issue by going into extraneous matters like you have listed,” he said. “Between 1999 and 2003 there had been several litigations on this matter and the courts have ruled. The courts, I say again, have ruled, and take it from there.”
He described the other guest as a familiar litigant on the subject. “The man who just spoke at length here is our regular customer. When I say he is our regular customer, he is our regular customer in bringing this kind of actions.”
Ogala said it was improper for a legal practitioner to pronounce on forgery when no court had made such a finding.
“I am embarrassed and surprised that a lawyer is coming on national television and making categorical statements that documents were forged, that somebody lied, when the courts have not so determined,” he said.
He added that the same lawyer currently has a live action on the subject. “As we speak today, he has filed another action in a Federal High Court on this same issue, where he has joined the University of Chicago. It is most unethical for a lawyer to come on national television to be discussing a matter where he is counsel. These are exactly the questions he has asked, and we are again defending.”
Recounting the litigation history, the senior advocate said the allegations have repeatedly failed in court.
“Before now, in 2022, this same Mr. Kalu that is speaking here filed five actions, five, in the name of Action Alliance, against INEC, Bola Tinubu, the APC and sundry persons on this same issue. All five matters were dismissed. One went as far as the Court of Appeal and it was also dismissed. I handled those matters and he knows what we are talking about.”
He said one of the suits attracted a personal costs order. “In one of the matters, Action Alliance even came to the court to denounce his suit. In one of the matters, penalty costs were awarded against him personally. The court not only dismissed his matter, the court asked him to personally pay costs for even bringing such a frivolous matter. On the same issues we are discussing three years after. The same issues.”
On the pending suit, he said: “The same issues you have presented before a Federal High Court in Kano, that is still pending, in the name of a certain NGO which has its office in Aba, Abia State, and an office in Abuja, and the matter is filed in Kano. We have joined issues on that, we have filed our defence, we have our premise. So we will leave that for the court to determine.”
He added: “So if he has issues, he is a lawyer, he should go and prove his issues in court. His case is pending on this issue in the Federal High Court, Kano, where he has even joined Chicago State University in the US. They are defendants in a suit by him. So let him wait for the court to determine the fate of his suit. We have joined issues with him. So it will not be proper for me to come and start discussing what is before the court, like he has elected to do.”
The senior advocate said the enquiry should be confined to the constitutional requirements rather than questions of biography.
“But what does the Constitution say about qualification for office? Because I hear things like, who are his parents? Who is his father? Who is his mother? Who is his sister? Who is his brother? Is he a Nigerian? The answer is yes, unless otherwise proven or determined through a judicial process. Is he qualified to run for presidency age wise? Yes, by constitutional provisions.”
On the educational threshold, he said: “[Does he have] the minimum educational qualification as prescribed by the Constitution, which simply says educated up to school certificate level? And even the interpretation section, in interpreting what constitutes school certificate level, says primary six and ability to read and write.”
He illustrated the point with his own standing at the Bar. “A man says I have a degree. Ogala is sitting here. I am a lawyer. I am a Senior Advocate. You are asking me as a Senior Advocate to prove if I am a lawyer. You want to know which primary school I attended, which secondary school I attended, which private lesson I attended, where I did my A levels, where I did my vacation tutorial school and all of that. What is at stake here is, as lawyers, let us face the Constitution and what the Constitution says, and it is simple: that you must be educated up to school certificate level.”
Asked whether it was his prerogative to withhold such information given that his client holds public office, Ogala said the enquiry before the country is a legal one.
“Even if I am a public officer, it is my prerogative. The issue here, we are in an election. The issue is what is in the INEC form that was filled. Is there compliance with the law? The issue of morality, what the public thinks, this is not morality here. Here I speak as a lawyer. Law and morality are not friends. I speak here as a lawyer.”
He said the biographical questions belong to the campaign season. “When we get to the stage of the campaigns, when we get to the stage of mounting the soapboxes, when we get to the stage of attending debates and interviews, you can ask the man himself the questions directly.”
He rejected the suggestion that he was denying Nigerians the right to ask questions. “I have not said, and it is unfair to attribute that to me, because I have not said you have no right, or Nigerians have no right to ask questions. They have every right. All I have said is, in my opinion, and I am entitled to it, and I have also said to you, when it is time for campaigns, when the man mounts the soapbox, when it comes to debates, when it comes on Channels TV, you can ask him these questions. But the legal issues are the issues I talk about, and I am saying these are things that Mr. Kalu and several others have submitted to judicial scrutiny.”
The senior advocate said the same complaints were raised and disposed of in the 2023 election litigation.
“Philip Umeadi in 1999, the late legal icon Gani Fawehinmi’s matter, dismissed on technical issues. In 2003, five matters filed by Kalu were also dismissed. The PDP, then the Labour Party, raised the same issues, litigated at the presidential election court of appeal sitting as a presidential election tribunal, and litigated up to the Supreme Court, and all settled, that he has met the minimum requirements for the office. All settled. So why are we relitigating and debating what the highest court of the land has since settled?”
On the moral questions, he said: “It is not within my purview to start providing answers to questions like, does he eat with his left or his right hand, or was he a footballer or not when he was in school. That is not within my purview. I restrict myself to the legal issues as a lawyer.”
He said the appearance was itself prompted by the earlier broadcast. “Those are the issues he raised some days ago on this same programme, which some of us saw online, and it motivated us that look, we have to put the record straight. We understand the game, we have gone through it before. We are not going to compromise. We will defend the mandate, we will defend it legally.”
Pressed on the reported inability of the university to authenticate the specific diploma submitted to INEC, the senior advocate asked for the source of the claim.
“Which proceedings said that? Give me the citation. I was involved. Give me which proceedings said that,” he said. Told that the reference was to proceedings in the United States, he replied that he did not have the details of that case.
He denied that the institution had disowned the document. “Who said they do not know how somebody came about a diploma? Who said that? If the school, Chicago State University, is saying that, Chicago never said that. That is not true. I have all the processes. It is not true.”
Asked what the school did say, he answered: “It did not say any such thing. The school confirmed that the man was a graduate and graduated in accounting. He was even cum laude.”
Ogala said the burden of proof lies on those making the allegations, not on the President.
“He has used the word perjury. He used that word here. He has used the word forgery. He has used the word lies. And the burden is on them to prove all of this,” he said.
He offered an illustration. “Anybody can say anything, and anybody that makes any allegation, if you call me a thief, I am not obliged to prove to you that I am not a thief. It is your responsibility and your burden to prove that I am a thief. So anybody has a right to use their mouth to say anything, and that is where we are.”
Asked why the opposition regards the President as a mystery, he said: “They want to win votes, so they will cook up all kinds of stories.”
He gave a comparison drawn from the citizenship provisions. “The Nigerian Constitution defines citizenship of Nigeria, either of whose parents or grandparents was a citizen of a part of the country that was part of Nigeria at independence in 1960. Take it to 1960, where Atiku comes from, Jada, at that time was in Cameroon. A school of thought argued that yes, we can argue that he is not a Nigerian. Anybody can say anything. Anybody can say Atiku is not a Nigerian today based on that provision. Does that then mean he is not a Nigerian? People are entitled to freedom of speech, though with its limitations. That is why there are cybercrime laws, that is why there are defamation laws.”
Responding after the other guest accused him of coming on television to lie and challenged him to produce any judgment holding the President eminently qualified, the senior advocate said he would not descend to that level.
“I will tell you it was the judgment that determined that Bola Tinubu was qualified to run for the presidency. I would just refer him to his own case that was dismissed, that is one, that he filed on behalf of Action Alliance. I will refer to the judgment of the Supreme Court in the petitions of the PDP and the Labour Party that challenged the qualification of Bola Tinubu to have contested the election, and the courts said he is qualified, that he met the qualification. So maybe he doesn’t know about those cases. I can pardon him if he doesn’t know.”
He objected to the language used against him. “He has made some unguarded statements, with all respect, even accusing me of lying. I will not use such words. I will not use such uncivilised words on national television, to say I am lying and I am infected by a virus. I mean, it is too much. My junior. I am a very senior member of the Bar to start joining issues with such pedestrianism.”
He restated the legal principle. “Only a court can determine that somebody has perjured, that somebody forged a document. He can only speculate. He is saying he lied, he forged, he presented. Which court has so held? Counsel, which court said so? You are not a court, you are not an investigator, you are not a forensic expert. You cannot make such pronouncements. They are at best allegations. They are at best speculations.”
In his closing intervention he returned to the pending suit. “Let the Federal High Court in Kano agree with you. You have a case pending in Kano. Go and argue your case in Kano now and prove these allegations, not come and talk on TV. You have a case pending in Kano as we speak, filed by you. Go and prove it there. You had five in 2022. You lost all.”
The other guest had told the programme that it is established that the President holds no primary or secondary school certificate, and called on him to produce them so that the matter could end. He alleged that in a 1999 affidavit the President deposed that his property was looted and his certificates went missing while he was in exile, while the same form contained entries about a post primary school and a government college that he described as false, and that a claim of graduation from Government College Lagos in 1970 could not stand because the school was established in 1974. He further alleged that the 2022 INEC form left the primary and secondary school columns blank, and asked that the President resign.
Ogala’s answer throughout was that these are matters for judicial determination, that they have been determined, and that the pending suit in Kano is where the accuser must make his case.
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