President Bola Tinubu has explained reasons for the discrepancies on the certificate issued to him by the Chicago State University.
President Tinubu spoke in a suit instituted against him by Atiku Abubakar in a court in the United States of America.
Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 elections in Nigeria, had dragged Tinubu to the court in the US, seeking for Chicago State University to release his certificate and the qualifications he presented to gain admission.
Abubakar said the certificate presented by Tinubu to the Independent National Electoral Commission to stand for the presidential election from Chicago State University was forged.
The claim followed discrepancies in the date of issuance and logo of the university.
But in his defence, Tinubu’s lawyers: Oluwole Afolabi and Christopher Carmichael, said an unidentified clerk of Chicago State University made the error about the date the school stated on his recently-issued certificate, thereby creating “the appearance of differences”.
The lawyers said: “Unfortunately, in responding to the illegal and invalid subpoena, CSU made several errors.
“CSU issued a new diploma for Bola A. Tinubu, but incorrectly wrote the date of graduation as June 27, 1979.
“The correct date was June 22, 1979, but that scrivener’s error – along with a change in the CSU logo, the font on the diploma, and leadership at CSU who signed the diploma created the appearance of differences between an earlier issued diploma and the one issued in response to the 2022 subpoena.”
