The Federal High Court in Abuja has granted former Vice President Atiku Abubakar leave to serve court processes on President Bola Tinubu through the All Progressives Congress.
Atiku, who is the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, filed the suit seeking Tinubu’s disqualification from the 2027 presidential race over an alleged forged NYSC discharge certificate submitted to INEC.
Justice Inyang Ekwo granted the substituted service application on Wednesday after Atiku’s counsel, O.T. Omotayo-Ojo, told the court that efforts to personally serve the President had failed.
The suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1888/2026 lists Tinubu, APC and INEC as first to third defendants.
Atiku and the ADC are asking the court to compel INEC to remove Tinubu and the APC from the list of candidates and parties for the 2027 election.
Omotayo-Ojo, who held the brief of Silas Onu, undertook to effect service within seven days. The judge ordered compliance and adjourned the case to September 28 for mention.
At the September 1 proceedings, Onu had told the court that the plaintiffs had been unable to serve Tinubu directly and sought substituted service.
Meanwhile, Tinubu, APC and INEC have filed preliminary objections asking the court to dismiss the suit.
In a joint counter-affidavit filed September 9, Tinubu and APC described the suit as incompetent, arguing the plaintiffs lack locus standi.
They denied submitting any forged certificate to INEC for the 2023 or 2027 elections, stating that the APC Director of Legal Services, Sanusi Samaila, deposed that no Form CF001 was submitted as alleged.
The defendants added that the NYSC has never denied issuing a discharge certificate to Tinubu.
In his written address, counsel to Tinubu and APC, Akin Olujinmi, SAN, argued that forgery is a criminal allegation that must be proved beyond reasonable doubt under Section 135(1) of the Evidence Act.
Olujinmi said the Supreme Court requires a disclaimer from the issuing institution to prove forgery, and that Atiku failed to produce any disclaimer from the NYSC.
He also argued that two documents must be produced to prove forgery — the original and the forged version — which the plaintiffs did not provide.
He urged the court to dismiss the suit as academic and incompetent, being a pre-election matter.
On its part, INEC in its objection filed September 7 through Alex Izinyon, SAN, challenged the suit for being statute-barred, lacking reasonable cause of action and constituting abuse of court process.
INEC also said the plaintiffs failed to comply with Paragraph 7(1) of the Federal High Court Pre-Election Practice Directions (Amendment) 2026, and faulted Reliefs 2 and 3 of the originating summons.
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