Chicago varsity clerk behind my graduation certificate anomalies –  Tinubu

Judge Jeffrey Gilbert had given the Nigerian president until August 23 to explain why his academic records at the CSU should not be released to his political opponent, Atiku Abubakar.

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Abubakar had earlier this month requested the court approval to subpoena Tinubu’s files domiciled with the CSU because he believed the documents would clarify explicit inconsistencies in Tinubu’s background, including publicly available documents that indicated that the CSU in the 1970s admitted a female student bearing Bola Tinubu who was born on March 29, 1954.

The Nigerian president said he was born on March 29, 1952, although he had also, at different times, listed 1954 as his birth year.

He also recently expunged his primary and secondary education from his records after it was discovered that the schools he listed under oath in his 1999 run for Lagos governor did not exist anywhere in Nigeria.

Abubakar is of the belief that the requested records would show which early and high papers Tinubu tendered to the CSU before he was admitted to study accounting there.

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

Abubakar argued that Tinubu had presented contradictory claims in Nigeria and the CSU, in responding to a previous subpoena, had issued documents that contradicted what Tinubu had entered under oath in Nigeria.

Tinubu’s lawyers, led by Oluwole Afolabi and Christopher Carmichael, argued that the August 2022 subpoena that was issued following a request by a Nigerian lawyer Mike Enahoro-Ebah was “illegal”

They contended that Abubakar had no valid grounds to seek the documents, especially under education privacy rights.

The lawyers nonetheless admitted the documents emanated from the CSU, but an unnamed clerk had mistakenly typed the graduation date.

“Unfortunately, in responding to the illegal and invalid subpoena, CSU made several errors,” Tinubu’s attorneys said. “CSU issued a new diploma for Bola A. Tinubu, but incorrectly wrote the date of graduation as June 27, 1979.”

The lawyers also said changes in school-authorised signatories and logos, alongside other anomalies including the fonts of the certificate, all combined to generate an appearance of wrongdoing.

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“The correct date was June 22, 1979, but that scrivener’s error – along with a change in the CSU logo, the font on the diploma, and leadership at CSU who signed the diploma created the appearance of differences between an earlier issued diploma and the one issued in response to the 2022 subpoena,” the lawyers said.

Abubakar said he filed the suit because he wanted to get the school to certify all documents relating to Tinubu, some of which had been filed by the Nigerian president’s lawyers in Nigerian court as part of the ongoing election petitions proceeding.

But Tinubu argued further that Abubakar should be requesting the documents because his academic records were not part of the initial litigation over the Nigerian elections.

They said the opposition leader’s argument had been focused entirely on cheating and other irregularities around the conduct of the election.

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

The court is expected to deliver judgment on or before September 21, in line with the Nigerian electoral law that mandates the conclusion of a petition within 180 days after the election.

The presidential election was held on February 25, and Mr Tinubu was sworn in as president on May 29.

Tinubu’s argument appeared to mirror the position of the CSU authorities on the lawsuit, and the school had said it would defer compliance decision to its former student on the matter.

Abubakar’s legal team, led by Chicago-based attorney Angela Marie Liu, is expected to file a response to Tinubu’s argument that the documents should not be sought because they were not part of the Nigerian proceeding and would be inadmissible due to the current stage of the case.

Chicago varsity clerk behind my graduation certificate anomalies –  Tinubu