Category: News

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has given an insight into his life before his achievement in the political field.

He revealed that he once worked as a taxi driver in the United States and even experienced being slapped by a naval officer for unintentionally overcharging him.

The President’s experiences were published in a biography titled ‘Tinubu: My life as gypsy cab driver in the US’, written by seasoned journalist, Mike Awoyinfa and featured on the back page of a national daily.

According to the story, Tinubu worked as an unlicensed taxi driver in Chicago, picking passengers up from the airport and driving them to their destinations.

The President revealed that he took up this driving job as a means of financial support before he started school.

He narrated, “We got an unregistered used car commonly called Gypsy, which we ran as a taxi. We operated at the airport where we picked passengers, and not anywhere else, like the hotel because it was forbidden for unlicensed cab drivers to do so.

“I was able to pay for my apartment and tuition fees at Chicago State University. I supplemented that by doing different menial jobs like door guard and security man.”

Speaking further about the incident, he said the naval officer he carried responded with a slap on his face because overcharged him, as his destination was a nearby.

“As a cab driver, one experience I will never forget was when I over-charged a naval officer who was returning to the country. It was not intentional,” Tinubu said.

“Apparently, I didn’t know the direction. There was no GPRS in those days to locate directions. So, he gave me the direction to his house in a Virginia suburb.

“I gave him the price and the man responded with a slap to my face. He said I should know the correct price to charge to the location he mentioned. He slapped me and gave me the money.”

The PUNCH reports that the joint petition by the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar recently came to a premature end.

The petition ended prematurely on Tuesday, over the presentation of unsorted documents before the Presidential Elections Petition Court.

The parties are challenging the outcome of the February 25 election wherein Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress emerged as the elected president as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Respondents in the suit are INEC, the president, Tinubu, and his party, the All Progressives Congress.

During the resumed hearing in the matter, the lead counsel for the PDP, Chris Uche SAN, tendered the certified true copies of the INEC voters register for FCT in 14 batches.

The court admitted them as evidence and reserved ruling on the objections by the respondents.

According to the court, the documents were not properly sorted.

In his defence, counsel for the PDP, Chris Uche SAN told the PEPC that it was difficult to get electoral materials including Form EC8As from INEC on time.

He asked the court to admit the documents in evidence pending the proper numbering by lawyers to parties and the court registry after the close of the day’s proceedings.

He added that INEC should have properly arranged the documents before bringing them to court in line with a subpoena issued to the electoral umpire.

But INEC’s lawyer, Kemi Pinero, disagreed with Uche’s position.

He said, after an election, it was incumbent on the parties to arrange the electoral documents given to them by the commission.

More so, he said that the documents sought to be tendered by the PDP were brought by INEC’s officials from across the country.

He also stated that despite producing the documents,  the PDP had not paid for its certification.

In response to the back and forth, Justice Haruna Tsammani – led panel told Uche that it was the duty of his legal team to create a schedule of the documents after INEC had produced them through a subpoena.

After deliberations, the petitioners told the court that the legal team have agreed to take the documents back for arrangement and tendering by tomorrow, Wednesday.

After confirming the agreement of the respondents, the court adjourned the matter to June 21 for the continuation of the hearing.

The petitioners have less than a week to round up their petition against Tinubu.

The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) has rejected a move by President Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC to stop the petition of the Allied People’s Movement (APM)  to challenge his qualification for the February 25, 2023 polls.

Tinubu, through his lead counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, had sought to use a Supreme Court judgment delivered on May 26, 2023, to terminate the APM’S petition, but the request was turned down.

The grouse of Tinubu was that the Apex Court had resolved the sole issue raised in the petition of the APM in the judgment in a suit filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He sought to move the Court to invoke the spirit and letters of the Supreme Court judgment to halt the hearing into the APM’s petition.

The Presiding Justice of the Court, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, however, disagreed with Tinubu and held that the party cannot be shut out in the face of fair hearing.

Justice Tsammani asked Tinubu to keep his objections against the hearing of the petition to the final address stage of the court’s proceedings.

Similar objections raised by APC through its counsel, Charles Edosomwen SAN, against the petition on the same ground were turned down by PEPC for the same reason.

Earlier, the APM, through its lawyer, Mr Gideon Ijiagbonya, had informed the Court of receipt of the Supreme Court judgment being sought to be used to terminate its petition.

The lawyer said that upon perusal of the judgment by the Supreme Court, he and his legal team concluded that there is life in the petition and applied for its hearing.

He, however, sought adjournment till June 26 to enable him to obtain a vital document from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to establish his case.

Justice Tsammani, in a brief ruling, rejected a week-long adjournment and fixed Wednesday, June 21, for the hearing of the petition.