Findings from the sworn deposition of Chicago State University (CSU) have revealed that President Bola Tinubu presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) when he filed his paperwork to contest Nigeria’s presidential election in June 2022.
The new development opens a new critical front in the ongoing legal battle challenging Tinubu’s electoral victory, and will likely cost him his presidency.
For years, Tinubu has been entangled in cases of certificate forgery shrouded in his secretive educational background. The former governor of Lagos State was caught changing his earlier claims that he attended St. John’s Primary School, Aroloya, Lagos, and Children Home School Ibadan. He also claimed to possess two degrees from two American universities, both of which he said were stolen by unidentified soldiers during the military regime of the 1990s.
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It was based on these ever-changing stories about Tinubu’s education that his co-contestant in the last presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, filed a suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago on August 2, seeking an order to force the CSU to release Tinubu’s academic record.
Federal District Judge Nancy Maldonado’s decision to grant Atiku’s request and issue an order for a deposition is significant, as it allowed for the revelation of several important details. One notable revelation is that the certificate presented by Tinubu to INEC was forged.
While the full transcript of the deposition is yet to be released, excerpts show that the certificate the Nigerian president submitted to the electoral commission was not issued by Chicago State University.
Caleb Westberg, the registrar at Chicago State University since November 2020, said Mr Tinubu’s certificate, dated June 22, 1979, and tendered to INEC on June 17, 2022, was not issued by the school and its administrators could, therefore, not be able to authenticate its source. He also said that Mr Tinubu did not apply for a replacement certificate, nor was he ever issued one.
The controversy trailing Tinubu’s CSU certificate has caught so much interest, with the National Democratic Coalition in the United States of America (NADECO – USA) asking him to resign and save Nigeria from further embarrassment.
A staff member of CSU reportedly said during the deposition that “It is a Nigerian thing to forge stamps of organizations.”
Tinubu has fought vigorously to keep his record with the CSU sealed. The president said making his CSU academic record public would infringe on his privacy rights under the Family Educational and Privacy Rights Act (FERPA), a U.S. law that protects the academic records of students.
He also appealed an earlier ruling by Judge Jeffrey Gilbert of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, who on September 19 ordered CSU to release the contested record.
At the Court of Appeal, Tinubu’s lawyers argued before Judge Nancy Maldonado that “Severe and irreparable harm will be done to Bola Tinubu if the records are released.”
Chicago State University has maintained that Tinubu graduated from the school, even though his record has been characterized by discrepancies. But a document earlier released by the school showed that Bola Tinubu who graduated from the school was a female.
Among the many of Tinubu’s academic qualifications claims that have been discovered to be false, is that he graduated from Government College Lagos in 1970, whereas the school was founded in 1974.
Early last month, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) upheld Tinubu’s electoral victory, dismissing the petitions of Peter Obi and Atiku. The duo, who have appealed the judgment, will now count on Tinubu’s latest certificate forgery to win their case at the Supreme Court.
Section 137 (1)(j) of the Nigerian Constitution (amended in 2010) addresses the issue of presenting a forged certificate to the INEC in the context of presidential elections. It stipulates that no one can be legitimately elected as the President of Nigeria if they have presented a forged certificate to INEC.