There is no evidence that the Chicago State University’s academic certificates of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) for the 2023 presidential election were forged, the BBC’s Global Disinformation Team reports.
It had been earlier reported that the university released Tinubu’s academic records, which went viral on social media but were tagged as fake by some opposition party leaders and members, especially his main rivals, Labour Party(LP)’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi and that of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Atiku Abubakar.
The quest to release Tinubu’s academic documents led to the case filed by Atiku at the US court, where he accused him of falsifying the CSU diploma of Bachelor of Science in Business Administration awarded in 1979 that he submitted to INEC.
In the trial, the documents Atiku demanded included a copy of any diploma issued by the CSU in 1979; a copy of the diploma the CSU gave to Tinubu in 1979; copies of diplomas with the same font, seal, signatures, and wording awarded to other students that are similar to what CSU awarded to Tinubu in 1979; and documents from the CSU that were certified by Jamar Orr, who was then a staff member of the university, in the 12 months from August 1, 2022.
But Tinubu’s lawyers insisted the documents would not be relevant in Atiku’s appeal against Tinubu at the Supreme Court.
The magistrate, Jeffrey Gilbert, however, ordered the CSU to provide all relevant and non-privileged documents to Atiku’s legal team within two days.
But, according to the BBC’s findings, the Social Security Number in the transcript from Chicago varsity matched what it had in other documents in which Tinubu’s gender was marked as male.
The released documents raised questions about Tinubu’s birth date and his secondary school. One of the documents stated that Tinubu attended Government College Lagos in 1970. However, information available on the school website states that it was only founded in 1974.
The British medium also reported that aside from the gender discrepancy, the birth dates in some of the released documents differed from the official birth date of President Tinubu, which is March 29, 1952.
According to it, Tinubu’s transcript from the CSU has his date of birth as March 29, 1954, while his undergraduate admissions application form had his date of birth as March 29, 1955.
Meanwhile, the BBC report claimed that Atiku’s lawyer questioned the date of birth on the certificate during Westberg’s deposition on the forms submitted to INEC because Tinubu was said to have given his date of birth as March 29, 1952.
Westberg, during cross-examination, the report said, responded that the discrepancies could have been due to a human error.
…Igbo group blasts Obi
In a related development, an Igbo group under the aegis of Omalegwuoku Progressive Initiative (OPI)/Igbo Kwenu for Asiwaju Tinubu has slammed the LP presidential candidate for disparaging President Tinubu over alleged certificate forgery.
The group was reacting to a press conference addressed Wednesday by Obi where he challenged Tinubu to come clean on his identity problem.
The Igbo group described Obi’s call on Tinubu to disclose his real identity as a national insult to all Nigerians who freely voted for the president.
But responding to Obi, the Global President of the Igbo group, Ginika Tor, said it was ironic for Obi to be asking for Tinubu, who had governed Lagos state for eight years to tell Nigerians the state he hails from.
Tor said: “I had already put up my speech and suddenly I realised that my brother whom I respect so much, Peter Obi, who is also the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, came up on ARISE TV to say that our president, a man that is the number one man in this country should come out and explain his state.
“So by now, a man who served 8 years as a governor, you don’t know his state, should tell us his background educationally, is that right?
“It is an insult to Nigeria as a nation. For you to call out our president who was massively supported, elected, confirmed and validated as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to come and stand before who? To say he’s from this state, from this country, from this region, from this locality. Does he owe us that? What the President owe us now is to take us to our destination of choice.
“So, I am disappointed in a man that I respected so much, my brother, who stood in front to run for Igbos. It may not be his turn now, but it could come in future. But whatever he does now is going to play out in the future. So let us be cautious and let all Igbos not be misled by this press interview that our brother granted ARISE.
“We are telling our brother, Obi, calm down, if God wanted you to be there, He would have made you the President. He did not. There is a lot of distraction on this President, are you not bothered with the issues of the world?…”
Tor further said Atiku was still suffering from a severe post-election loss trauma and a near-presidency syndrome following his defeat at the polls in his fifth presidential contest.
She added that the former vice president’s post-election trauma ballooned following the unsuccessful prosecution of his brief by his legal team at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) filed a petition lacking in substance and direction.
The group it initially chose to refrain from making comments on the issue because it was before the court, but decided to debunk the lies being told by somebody who should place patriotism and national interest above his ambition to be the number one man in Nigeria.
According to her, “to seek to impugn the character of Nigerians before the International community in the manner Peter Obi is going smacks of desperation.”
…Atiku slams report
Meanwhile, Atiku’s Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, has slammed the BBC report.
In a statement Wednesday, Shaibu described the resort as a hatchet job, adding that the outrage it had solicited from the generality of Nigerians was enough evidence to show that the BBC goofed.
Atiku’s aide said the BBC’s move was not surprising as it was in line with a previous statement he had issued wherein he had revealed that the Tinubu administration was set to unleash its full propaganda programme.
He said, “Sometime last week, when the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) issued a final warning to Arise News TV, we pointed out that the Tinubu administration was on the verge of launching a full blown propaganda and also intimidating ‘uncooperative’ media houses into discrediting and downplaying the CSU scandal. Sadly, we never imagined that it would be the BBC that would become the willing tool.
“It is unconscionable, appalling and preposterous that in this current information age, a foreign medium of repute could try to bamboozle Nigerians with a jaundiced report when the details are clear for everyone to see. Thank God young Nigerians have begun filing complaints against the hack writers who decided to soil their names for a bowl of porridge.
“We are not ignorant of the machinations of the BBC and its bias towards the current government. It is unfortunate that the BBC is not upholding the same standards as they would uphold in the UK where a Prime Minister was forced out of office for hosting a party during COVID-19. In 2009, columnist Mehdi Hasan wrote in the New Statesman that the BBC was biased ‘towards power and privilege, tradition and orthodoxy.
“It is no wonder that in the last one year, the only news medium that was given exclusive access to interview Tinubu was the BBC.
“In the so-called fact-check report, the BBC decided to bury in the last paragraphs the fact that Tinubu claimed to have attended Government College, Lagos in 1970 when the school was established in 1974. Why didn’t these so-called fact-checkers reflect it on their headline?
“What is the essence of the report when it failed to uncover the most critical questions? If this report was aimed at fact-checking, it should have mentioned the year the certificate was obtained by Tinubu from the CSU and if the one he submitted to INEC is the same one he received from CSU.”
…APC fires Obi, Atiku over CSU
But the APC has replied Obi that Tinubu needed no re-introduction nor have identity problem.
In a statement signed Thursday in Abuja, by the APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, said Nigerians know the President as a former Senator of the Federal Republic where he served as Chairman of the influential Finance and Appropriations Committee and as a former governor of Lagos state.
According to the statement, the 8.9 million Nigerians who voted him into office were, and remained aware of his outstanding record and accomplishments as a defender of democracy, freedom, social and economic justice for over three decades.
“Mr. Obi must know that President Tinubu does not need a re-introduction. He does not have any identity problem, except the one contrived by the Atikus and Peters of our political firmament.
“Nigerians know President Tinubu as a thoroughbred professional and former auditor and treasurer of Mobil Nigeria, now ExxonMobil.
“They know him as a former Governor of Lagos State who designed and paved the pathway to the growth and prosperity of present day Lagos, the 5th largest economy in Africa.
“Nigerians know who they voted for as the 16th President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They voted for him with full faith and confidence that his track record and wide competences would help in the re-engineering of our country’s economy for the good of the greatest number of Nigerians.
“In marked contrast, Nigerians have flatly and serially rejected Atiku Abubakar, and denied Peter Obi’s presidential bid in the last election election.
“Beyond regaling Nigerians with false and embarrassing statistics for which he has gained notoriety, Peter Obi cannot be said to be known for any outstanding performance as governor of Anambra State for eight years with no worthy legacy standing to his name.”
Reacting to Tinubu’s academic record, Morka said the facts are clear and settled except for those political jaundiced by the trauma of electoral defeat.
“The Chicago State University has unequivocally stated over and over again, and in a deposition, under oath, by the Registrar, Caleb Westberg that President Tinubu attended the school and graduated with Honours.
“Nigerians are now familiar with stellar academic performance of President Tinubu as evidenced by his transcript as released by the CSU with 18As, 10Bs and 3Cs grades.
“It is disturbing and utterly contemptuous of the courts of our land for the duo of Atiku and Obi to rail and pollute the public space with the very same issues that they have submitted to the court for adjudication. They have continued to perpetrate public deception, operating, simultaneously, as accusers and judges in their own base cause.
“We condemn the sordid and disgraceful attempt by Obi, Atiku and their cheerleaders to use the mainstream and social media to intimidate the judiciary, incite the public to violence, disparage Justices of the Appeal and Supreme Court, and we urge all well meaning Nigerians to condemn this anti-democratic and irresponsible conduct of both political naggers. For the records, our team of lawyers stand advised to explore all available judicial mechanisms towards bringing Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar to justice for their ceaseless contemptuous conduct.
“In our democracy, the office of the President is not filled by intimidation, blackmail or reckless self help. It is filled by the people, by their lawful votes at the polls just as they did on February 25, 2023 when they elected Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the ruling party further added.
