Controversy has continued to trail the authenticity of the Diploma Certificate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu claimed to have obtained from the Chicago State University, CSU.
The President used the certificate to secure final clearance for participation in the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the All Progressive Congress, APC.
In the latest development, a top official of CSU, Mr Carl Westberg, on Tuesday said that a replacement copy of the Diploma certificate Tinubu submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was not from the Institution.
Westberg, who is the Registrar of the university, speaking under oath, specifically told the court that he was seeing the Diploma certificate copy for the very first time in the instant proceedings.
The subpoenaed witness testified on oath on the order of Judge Nancy Maldonado to back up the order for release of academic documents of Tinubu to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Atiku Abubakar, who participated in the February 25, 2023 presidential election along with Tinubu, had challenged the declaration of the APC candidate as winner of the election on various grounds.
Among the grounds are that Tinubu was not qualified to have stood for the election on the grounds that he submitted forged documents on oath to INEC to secure eligibility.
In pursuit of his claim, Atiku had applied to a US District Court to issue an order compelling the CSU to release Tinubu’s academic records to him for verification and authentication.
Following his success at the US court, the CSU was ordered to release the academic records to him and to back up the release of the documents with deposition by an official of the institution.
In compliance with the order of the court, Westberg who testified on oath that Tinubu’s Diploma certificate, which he claimed to have obtained from the university, and which he used to secure clearance for participation in the presidential election, is not a document of the university.
For example, the witness admitted that the Institution had no board of trustees in 1979, as against the claim in the certificate Tinubu submitted to the electoral body.
When pressed on the signatures on other certificates issued in 1979 and the one Tinubu submitted to INEC, the witness admitted variations in signature, logo, and seal.
Specifically, Westberg pointed out that the signature on the replacement certificate of Tinubu matches certificates issued in the 1990s and not those of 1979, as claimed by the President.
Meanwhile, a certified true copy of the deposition and cross examination is expected to be handed over to Atiku to further establish his allegation of forgery against Tinubu.
It would be recalled that the final leg of Atiku’s case, seeking disqualification of Tinubu from the 2023 presidential election, is now pending before the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
