The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, has said the purported errors discovered in the certificate of President Bola Tinubu validate his discovery.
It was alleged that Tinubu’s lawyers had on Wednesday, in response to the petition of Atiku in a federal court in Chicago, Illinois, United States, agreed that there are errors in the academic certificate presented to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by the President, and blamed those errors on the clerk of the Chicago State University (CSU).
In a statement issued on Saturday, the former vice president said documents submitted by his lawyers in the United States and Nigeria showed disturbing discrepancies and circumstantial fallacies in Tinubu’s academic records from the university.
One of the documents, for instance, is the certified true copy of the certificate submitted by Tinubu to INEC on 17th June 2022, and according to Atiku’s lawyers, “this, purportedly, is the certificate issued to him by Chicago State University (“CSU”) showing that he attended the school, and evidencing the degree he was awarded.
“In another document is a copy of a letter dated September 22, 2022 from Mr. Caleb Westberg, the Registrar of CSU attaching a copy of the certificate issued to Bola Tinubu in recognition of the degree he was awarded by the university.
“There is another document, which is a copy of the certificate forwarded by Mr. Westberg, as mentioned above, in response to a subpoena that was issued to CSU in respect of Bola Tinubu’s academic qualifications and achievements.
“There is also a copy of the bio of Dr. Niva Lubin-Johnson. Dr. Lubin-Johnson was the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of CSU from January 2001 to December 2002.
“Also is a copy of the bio of Dr. Elnora D. Daniel. Dr. Daniel was the President of CSU from 1998 to 2008.”
However, the interesting thing upon further examination of these documents is that while they all speak to the same subject, Tinubu’s academic qualifications from the Chicago State University, they all bear different details.