The Chicago State University (CSU) has said it does not have the certificate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) prior to the 2023 general elections.
Caleb Westberg, the university registrar and deponent/witness, said this while giving an oral deposition on the release of Tinubu’s academic records to his political opponent, Atiku Abubakar, on Monday.
A deposition is the process of taking a sworn, out-of-court oral testimony of a witness. This testimony may be reduced to a written transcript for use in court or for discovery purposes.
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.
He had argued that there are discrepancies in the certificate Tinubu submitted to the INEC which should have rendered him ineligible to contest the election.
Counsel to Atiku, Angela M. Liu had asked the witness why he had the university’s diploma dated June 27, 1979 and not the one tendered to INEC.
Speaking on the certificate (also called diploma), Westberg said he could not comment on it because he did not see it.
“The university only has diplomas that students didn’t pick up in its possession. The university does not typically keep diplomas. I do not have the diploma that was submitted to INEC in our possession,” he said.
On why Tinubu did not pick up his replacement diploma from the school, the witness said, “The university does not typically keep Diplomas. I have the Diploma that was made available to Mr Enahoro-Ebah in our possession because Mr Tinubu did not pick it up.
“I do not have the Diploma that was submitted to INEC in our possession because he had picked it up.”
However, when he was asked whether CSU has no basis to conclude with certainty that the Bola Tinubu (who graduated from the school) is the same Bola Tinubu who is president, he said, “we believe they are one and the same.”
Liu then inquired whether the CSU was simply assuming that Bola Tinubu is the same as the president, the witness responded: “that is correct.”
Reacting on Wednesday, the presidency dismissed claims that the certificate President Tinubu presented to INEC for the 2023 elections was forged.
President Tinubu’s media aide, Temitope Ajayi, argued that CSU affirmed under oath that Tinubu attended and graduated from the institution and that the school does not handle replacements for lost certificates.
He said there was no truth in the forgery claim, adding that no person can forge a certificate he already has.
Taking to his account on the X formerly known as Twitter, the presidential media aide wrote: “We should be clear.
“In the deposition made by the Chicago State University, there was nowhere the University said the certificate presented to INEC by President Tinubu is fake. The University insisted under oath that President Tinubu graduated with honours and even at that, replacements for lost certificates are done by vendors not the University. The claim that President Tinubu submitted fake certificate to INEC does not make sense. A man cannot forge the academic records he possesses. You can only forge what you don’t have.”
Chicago: Atiku camp silent
Meanwhile, efforts to get the reaction of the former vice president were not successful.
His Media Adviser, Mr Paul Ibe, who said he was in a meeting, did not get back to Daily Trust as of the time of filing this report. (Daily Trust)
