Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar was not the only person who obtained signed court documents on Saturdays in 1973.
Spokespersons of Atiku, Paul Ibe and Phrank Shaibu, revealed this in Abuja on Monday
Ibe said the clarification was necessary to counter a negative narrative about the public life of Atiku for securing a court document on change of name from Siddiq to Abubakar with an affidavit dated Aug. 18, 1973.
He said the affidavit deposed by Atiku in 1973 wherein he expressed his wishes to be publicly known as Atiku Abubakar, was officially signed on a Saturday.
Ibe said since Atiku went about the academic record of President Bola Tinubu, there have been several attempts to dent the image of the former vice president.
He said it was amusing watching some people running around looking an item they could use to create a parallel narrative about the public life of Abubakar.
According to him, all that was necessary to the persons was to pick a hole in Atiku’s public profile, hence they went into a frenzy that Abubakar’s affidavit was signed on a Saturday.
“So, eventually, they found that the affidavit that Abubakar deposed to on Aug. 18, 1973, wherein he expressed his wishes to be publicly known as Atiku Abubakar, was signed on a Saturday,” Ibe said.
He said Atiku’s team made efforts to reveal the truth about the matter because they knew the character of the man that they worked for and the frenzy of those engaging in vain hallucinations.
“We conducted research into the registry of the Lagos State high courts in the same year, 1973, to see if it was really an absurdity to have court papers signed on a Saturday.
“The outcome of our findings showed clearly that there are court papers that were signed on Saturdays in the year 1973!
“Abubakar’s affidavit was not the only one signed on Saturday as the con men would want you to believe,” Ibe said.
He also recalled that at a time, the former Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, attempted to bring back Saturday as official working day in Lagos, which according to them, was an evidence that Saturday was once working day in the state.
They expressed the hope that the discovery into Atiku’s Saturday affidavit by his media team would rest the issue.
He called on President Bola Tinubu to also take the opportunity to come clean on issues about him and his academic qualifications as done by Abubakar.
Also presenting PowerPoint slides at the event, Shuaibu maintained that Atiku’s document was not the only one to be signed or issued by the court on Saturday in Lagos State in 1973.
He said that to establish the truth, Atiku team made official request to the Head of Archive Session, Lagos State High Court, Ikeja and obtained some Certified True Copies (CTC) documents issued by Lagos State High Court on Saturdays in 1973.
Shuaibu presented to the media some soft copies of CTC court documents issued by Lagos State High Court on Saturdays Sept. 8 and March 17, 1973, to show that Atiku had nothing to hide about his name.
“As you can see the outcome of our findings show clearly that these court papers or CTC were signed on Saturday in 1973, the same period the affidavit for the change of his name from Sadiq to Abubakar was issued.
“ Atiku’s affidavit was not the only court paper that was signed on Saturday as they want you to believe, “ he said.
