President Bola Tinubu
BBC Finds No Evidence of Forged Academic Records for President Bola Tinubu at Chicago State University
The BBC has reported that there is no substantiated evidence to suggest that President Bola Tinubu forged his academic records from Chicago State University, which were submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2023 presidential election.
This information comes from a report by the BBC’s Global Disinformation Team, published on Wednesday. It’s worth noting that a U.S. magistrate, Jeffrey Gilbert, had previously ordered CSU to release Tinubu’s academic records to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. This decision had raised concerns among Nigerians regarding the authenticity of the records.
In response, CSU’s registrar, Caleb Westberg, did not question the president’s certificate but indicated that the copy submitted to INEC did not originate from the institution.
Atiku, who ran against Tinubu under the Peoples Democratic Party, had voiced concerns about the authenticity of the president’s academic record.
Despite these controversies, Tinubu’s legal team maintained that the documents were not relevant to Atiku’s appeal.
However, according to the BBC’s investigation, the Social Security Number in the transcript from Chicago State University matched the information found in other documents where Tinubu’s gender was correctly identified as male.
The released documents did raise questions about Tinubu’s birth date and the secondary school he attended. One document suggested that Tinubu attended Government College Lagos in 1970, but the school’s website states that it was only established in 1974.
The BBC report also noted discrepancies in the birth dates found in some of the released documents compared to Tinubu’s official birth date, which is March 29, 1952. His transcript from CSU listed his date of birth as March 29, 1954, while his undergraduate admissions application form indicated March 29, 1955.
The report revealed that Atiku’s lawyer had raised concerns about the date of birth on the certificate during Westberg’s deposition, as Tinubu had reportedly stated his date of birth as March 29, 1952.
Westberg, in response to these inconsistencies during cross-examination, suggested that they might have resulted from human error.
Inquiries made by the BBC to CSU regarding the diplomas were met with a statement from the institution asserting its confidence in the accuracy and integrity of its records concerning Tinubu’s attendance and graduation requirements
[logo-slider]
