CHICAGOGATE: TINUBU BLAMES CHICAGO UNIVERSITY CLERK FOR ERRORS ON HIS CERTIFICATE

Chicagogate: TInubu Blames Chicago University Clerk for errors on his certificate.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Wednesday, told a United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division that the “errors” in his certificate that had become a subject of litigation, were made by the Chicago State University (CSU), which issued two certificates at different occasions.

The legal process initiated by the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party Atiku Abubakar asking the Chicago State University for the discovery of President Bola Tinubu’s academic records has taken on a new twist with the admission of errors on the documents.

Lawyers to President Tinubu, while filing their response to Atiku’s enquiry, however, blamed the clerk of the 156 year-old school for the errors in his academic documents and certificate.

Tinubu’s new claim was made before the judge hearing the case, Jeffery Gilbert of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago.

Tinubu’s academic records had been enmeshed in controversy since 1999, after he became the governor of Lagos State.
While his primary and secondary education history had been shrouded in secrecy, the dust raised by his university certificate submitted in aid of his qualification for the 2023 presidential election, which is still being hotly contested in the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal had refused to settle.

Meanwhile there have been crises of authenticity about the documents that Tinubu submitted with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and a viral document that the university in the 1970s admitted a female student bearing Bola Tinubu who was born on March 29, 1954.

While President Tinubu claimed that he was born on March 29, 1952, he had also, at different times, listed 1954 as his birth year in the past.

In 1999, during his run for the Lagos State governorship position, he claimed to have attended schools in Nigeria, which included Government College Ibadan, but which he later rescinded.

TInubu had also recently expunged his primary and secondary education from his records after it was discovered that other schools he listed under oath in his 1999 INEC form CF001 did not exist anywhere in Nigeria.

The documents being sought by Atiku seek to highlight which early education credentials Tinubu submitted to Chicago University before he was admitted into the institution.

It will be recalled that Atiku Abubakar alleged that Tinubu’s academic records were forged.

Atiku Abubakar had sued to obtain Mr Tinubu’s school records under a U.S. statute that allows documents available in the U.S. to be subpoenaed for use as evidence in a foreign court.

But according to Tinubu’s lawyers who argued further, said that Atiku Abubakar shouldn’t be requesting the documents because Mr Tinubu’s academic records were not
part of the initial litigation over the Nigerian elections.

They also argued that the Nigerian court hearing the election petitions had already concluded hearing on arguments, and a judgment is now being anticipated.