Atiku Abubakar, the 2023 presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) said that Chicago State University (CSU) had provided two similar certificates proving President Bola Tinubu’s attendance at the university.
This was said by Atiku via his US attorney, Angela Liu, in a statement on Saturday in response to Tinubu’s attorneys’ submission to an application submitted to a US court in Chicago, Illinois.
According to Liu, three people signed the first certificate issued by Chicago State University, whereas just two people signed the other.
Recall that Tinubu, in response to the petition of Atiku in the U.S., blamed the errors discovered in his academic certificate on the clerk of the University.
Tinubu’s lawyers said an unidentified Clerk of the institution made the error about the date the school stated on his recently issued certificate, thereby creating “the appearance of differences”.
However, according to Liu, while one document asserts that Tinubu was issued the certificate on June 22, 1979, another suggests that the president received the degree on June 27, 1979.
The lawyer also expressed dismay that both certificates bear different letter fonts and logos of the university.
She said: “The document marked ‘A’ is the certificate submitted by Tinubu to INEC. This certificate is, in every material respect, exactly the same as the document marked ‘B’ except for the following.
“Document ‘A’ is signed by at least three people whereas ‘B’ is signed by only two people.
“The document marked ‘E’ states that Tinubu was issued a certificate on 22nd June 1979 but then proceeded to forward a copy of a certificate (‘B’) dated 27th June 1979. Please note that ‘A’ is actually dated 22nd June 1979, but this document did not emanate from CSU. Only ‘B’ did.
“You cannot have two certificates issued by the same university, to the same person, for the same course of study, but issued on different dates and signed by two different sets of people.
“The documents ‘A’ and ‘B’ both state that Tinubu graduated with a BSc in ‘Business AND Administration’, whereas document ‘E’ (which came from CSU) states that he graduated with a BSc in ‘Business Administration’.”
The university’s website, according to the lawyer, only mentions that the College of Business offers a modern business program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration or Masters in Business Administration (MBA). The lawyer claimed that there is no mention of “business and administration” on the website.
Elnora D. Daniel could not have signed both certificates, according to Liu, because she served as the university president only from 1998 to 2008.
“She was neither president of the university in 1979 – when the certificate was purportedly issued – nor was she president in 2022, when the replacement certificates were issued,” she said.
Ada Peter