A civil society group has approached the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court, seeking a restraining order barring INEC, the State Security Service, and the ruling All Progressives Congress from fielding Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun for any elective office over his questionable academic records, if they were real at all.  

Human Global Resource Initiative is praying the court to place an embargo on Mr Abiodun’s future nomination and candidacy for any position until he declares and clarifies alleged discrepancies in his credentials from elementary school up to the nation’s mandatory National Youth Service Corps.

Also joined as defendants in the suit are the African Democratic Congress (ADC), PDP, Labour Party, and Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP).

Of particular concern was Mr Abiodun’s conflicting declarations of attending “Comprehensive High School Ayetoro State Primary School” when he contested in the senatorial election in 2015 and “International Primary School Ayetoro” when he contested in 2019 as a governorship candidate.

In response to an enquiry in April 2022, Yewa North Local Government Education Authority said, “International Primary School Ayetoro” did not exist at the time Mr Abiodun claimed to have graduated from the institution.

“I am glad to inform you that International Primary School Ayetoro is not in existence in Yawa North Local Government. Though a Comprehensive High School, Ayetoro exists but is a secondary school,” Mr Isiak cited the local government’s education authority as stating in April 2022.

The group contends that the inconsistencies in the governor’s sworn INEC CF001 forms amount to a false declaration in breach of the constitution and the Electoral Act, citing a Supreme Court precedent in the case of SALEH VS ABAH & ORS, (SC.144/2016).

Also at issue was the governor’s 2015 declaration that he graduated from the University of Ife in 1986 and from Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1989, a claim the civil society group deemed untrue.  

“Our inquiries at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, revealed that the eighth respondent (Mr Abiodun) never even graduated from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife) despite stating that he attended the University in his form CF001 in 2015,” Mr Isiak told the court in February.

Mr Abiodun, who in 2015 declared to have graduated from the two higher institutions in Nigeria and the U.S. on his CF001 form, backtracked in 2019, asserting “that he has only a West African School Certificate (1978) in the Form CF001 submitted” to INEC.

The group sought to understand how the change in Mr Abiodun’s university degrees, or their sudden absence, came about.

The civil society group asked the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court to determine whether Mr Abiodun’s contradictions amount to a false declaration and to violations of the Nigerian Constitution and the Electoral Act.

The initiative and its executive director, Buna Olaitan Isiak, also accused the governor of committing perjury, asserting that he made false declarations to conceal a past indictment in the United States.

Despite being remanded in jail in Miami-Dade, Florida, as a repeat offender with jail number 860089436 in 1986, Mr Abiodun made no mention of his criminal record on his INEC form. Mr Isiak of Human Global Resource Initiative deposed to the court.

The Ogun governor was arrested in the United States in 1986 for credit card fraud and forgery. When his political career kicked into full gear, he requested a redaction of his records, which was granted in 2015.

The group also insisted that the case was being handled pro bono by Yemi Oke of MJS Partners. This public-interest law firm shares a similar hankering for transparency among elected officials.

In 2022, Mr Abiodun argued his arrest in Florida was insufficient to disqualify his governorship candidacy, asserting that only a court could do so had the statutes of limitations for such matters not elapsed.

The Ogun governor, a sitting lame duck whose second term expires next year, is rumoured to be nursing a senatorial ambition to unseat his political adversary, Ogun East Senator Gbenga Daniel. 

But that ambition might have hit a snag in light of the Initiative’s request that INEC be restrained from accepting his nomination for any political office.

Among the reliefs sought is “An Order of Perpetual Injunction restraining the first respondent (INEC) from considering, accepting or recognising the eighth respondent (Mr Abiodun) as a candidate of the seventh respondent (APC), the third-sixth respondent or of any registered political party for election into any office in Nigeria.”