Center for Reform and Public Advocacy, a civil rights organization, has given the Inspector-General of Police a 48- hour ultimatum within which he should arrest and commence criminal prosecution against the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, for allegedly giving false academic qualifications to secure the nomination.
If the Police boss fails to act on this, the group threatened to take court action against him to arrest Tinubu.
The threat was given by the Legal Adviser of the CRPA and human rights lawyer, Agu Kalu, at a press conference in Abuja on Saturday.
He alleged that Tinubu was not legally qualified to be Nigeria’s president for giving false information on oath in his form EC 9 submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
He said that in 1999 Bola Tinubu had claimed to have attended Saint Paul Aroloya Children Home School, Ibadan between 1958 and 1964, and Government College, Ibadan between 1965 and 1969.
However, in 2022, Kalu said Tinubu claimed that he never attended any primary or secondary school in his EC9 form.
“We wrote a petition to the IG on June 16, demanding the prosecution of Tinubu for providing false information on oath in his INEC form CF 001 which he submitted in 1999.
“Since the IG is yet to act on the petition, we are using this press conference to call on the IG to do the needful, he is not above the law, nobody is above the law, Sections 191 and 192 make it a criminal offence to provide false information on oath.
“We are also calling on President Buhari to direct the IG to arrest and prosecute Tinubu for perjury, it is a very serious issue.”
According to him, should Buhari and IG fail to get Tinubu arrested, the group in collaboration with other civil groups will approach a court of law for judicial review and order of mandamus to order the IG to do the needful.
Kalu who presented a Certified True Copy ad-hoc report of the Lagos State House of Assembly, which investigated the former governor in 1999 said that Tinubu clearly admitted discrepancies in his academic qualifications.
He said that the investigation of Tinubu’s academic qualification in 1999 was the aftermath of a petition written by a foremost legal luminary and social crusader, late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN).
