At last, officials of Chicago State University (CSU) during deposition under oath, have disowned the certificate  President Bola Tinubu presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to contest the 2023 Presidential election.

By this latest development, it is now clear that Tinubu forged the certificate he submitted to INEC even as it was established that he attended the university.

During deposition which commenced at 5pm Nigerian time on Tuesday, CSU  officials denied the stamp and other items on the certificate and said they do not know where he got the certificate from.

Recall that on Monday, CSU released the academic records of President Bola Tinubu to his political opponent, Atiku Abubakar.

Atiku, the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 25 election, had requested the documents to back his allegation of forgery of CSU certificate against Tinubu.

The allegation of forgery was one of those dismissed by the presidential election court in the suit Atiku filed to challenge the election of Tinubu. Despite the court’s ruling, Atiku continued his case at the US court, hoping to get official documents to back his claim and possibly include them in his appeal at the Supreme Court.

Through his lawyers, Atiku sought these key things – an example of a CSU diploma issued in 1979; Tinubu’s diploma issued in 1979; example of a CSU diploma that “contains the same font, seal, signatures and wording” as Tinubu’s diploma issued in June 1979 and CSU documents certified and produced by Jamar Orr, an associate general counsel at CSU at the time.

Tinubu had done all within his power not to have the record released, saying they would cause him severe harm because they were private to him but a United States District Court in Northern Illinois ordered CSU to release the academic records.

The released documents pointed out some issues.

AUTHENTICITY OF GRADUATION

The documents contained Tinubu’s admission records, and a letter dated 27 June 2022 confirming that he attended the university from August 1977 to June 1979 majoring in accounting. The letter said Tinubu was awarded Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with Honours on 22 June 1979.

DIPLOMA ISSUE

A careful look at the documents showed that the certificate which Tinubu submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is different from the certificates CSU issued in 1979. Tinubu, who had previously claimed to have lost his original certificates, presented a replacement of his CSU diploma to INEC.