Phrank Shaibu, the Special Assistant on Public Communications to Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, attributed Bola Tinubu’s legal setback in the Northern District of Illinois court to the independence of the United States judiciary. He made this statement in response to Justice Nancy Maldonado’s order for Chicago State University to release all of Tinubu’s academic records to Atiku.
Shaibu claimed that Tinubu had evaded justice since 1999 when the prominent human rights lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), initially exposed his certificate controversy. He expressed disappointment that, instead of deciding the case on its merits, judges had repeatedly ruled in favor of Tinubu based on technicalities, resulting in more than 20 questionable victories.
Shaibu criticized the Nigerian judiciary for failing to meet the public’s expectations as the last resort for justice. He pointed out that Justice Maldonado, who had only served on the bench for less than a year and had deliberated on the case for just a month, achieved what the Nigerian judiciary had been unable to accomplish in 23 years.
He concluded by expressing concern about the state of Nigerian society, suggesting that it was on the verge of descending into a state of nature, characterized as “short, brutish, and nasty” by philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Additionally, Shaibu criticized Tinubu’s lawyer, Babatunde Ogala, and former National Legal Adviser of the All Progressives Congress, for dismissing the significance of the US court’s ruling.