*US has washed itself clean, up to Nigerian judiciary to prove its worth in justice delivery – Respondents
By OUR REPORTER
President of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Chicago State University certificate (called diploma in the United States), which he submitted to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in June 2022 to contest for the February 25, 2023 presidential election, is now clearly unknown to the university and, by implication, the document is considered forged.
This was coming as the deponent (witness) in the person of registrar at the university, Mr. Caleb Westberg, stood before the Justice Nancy Maldonado’s district court for the Northern Illinois in Chicago on Tuesday October 3 to give his deposition to the 32-page documents earlier on Monday October 2 handed over to former Vice President Atiku in compliance with the court’s Saturday September 30 appeal ruling.
According to the institution’s testimony, of which written transcripts this online newspaper has sighted, the official disclaimer of the Tinubu’s certificate, that is the only academic qualification he presented to the electoral body in Nigeria, came at the deposition that also saw other officials of the university giving their testimony on Tuesday.
The DEFENDER reports that the over 5 hours deposition session, which took the court 8pm Nigerian time on Tuesday, had brought about an expanded transcript that, after it had been processed, showed some most crucial expectation of Nigerians for example, how the school would characterise Mr Tinubu’s certificate under oath and penalty of perjury.
Caleb Westberg, the registrar at Chicago State University, said Tinubu’s certificate, dated June 22, 1979, and tendered to INEC on June 17, 2022, was not issued by the school and the CSU’s administrators could, therefore, not be able to authenticate its source, it was gathered.
Mr Westberg, CSU’s registrar since November 2020, also said, during the deposition, that Tinubu did not apply for a replacement certificate, neither was he ever issued one.
The categorical statement capped a successful outcome for the months-long legal strategy of Atiku Abubakar, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s main opponent in the disputed February 25 election, who approached the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago to ascertain the authenticity or otherwise of the document.
Federal district judge Nancy Maldonado granted a final order for CSU administrators to turn over all documents relating to Mr Tinubu and also sit down before her for deposition by an adversarial team of lawyers deployed by Atiku Abubakar.
Tinubu, sensing the intractable consequences of the proceeding, as put in a media report, vigorously fought to thwart its successful outcome with his lawyers warning the judge in a September 25 hearing that releasing the documents with deposition would inevitably inflict “severe and irreparable harm” against the Nigerian president.
The school had long insisted that Tinubu was its student, entering in 1977 and graduating in 1979, but its inability to authenticate the certificate the Nigerian president was parading to the point that he had submitted same in his quest to rule Nigeria would ripple through the country’s over 200 million population for the foreseeable future, the report said.
Justices versus Technicians?
Copies of transcript from Tuesday October 3, 2023 deposition under oath to give legal force to 32-page documents of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu released by Chicago State University (CSU) to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar are now out putting an end to the whole legal battle abroad.
All that is now left is for the Nigerian judiciary to prove to the world why the now common statement “Justices versus Technicians” should not be taken serious by Nigerians and members of the international community.
This is as respondents have had a general comment to say “The United States of America has washed itself clean. Its judiciary’s ability to dispose of this vital case from originating to appeal courts in matter of weeks puts a lot on Nigerian judiciary. Such case would have taken one Nigerian court more than five years.”
Although the 32-page documents handed over to Atiku are no longer hidden as media and supporters of both parties choose to select what they respectively report and argue about, Atiku’s senior special assistant on public communications, Mr. Phrank Shaibu, said Tuesday that the documents showed that the school’s certificate submitted to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by Tinubu was forged.
Shaibu, who like Tinubu’s aides, had chosen not to talk, broke silence after the Minister of Aviation and former Tinubu’s campaign council spspokesman, Fesus Keyamo’s comment via X and All Progressives Congress (APC)’s Deputy National Publicity Director, Bala Ibrahim, clearly described the documents received by Atiku as a proof that he had failed and that their principal is vindicated.
The APC particularly said that Tinubu had been vindicated while daring Atiku to present the Chicago State University documents he received through the US court order at the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
Responding to the Tinubu’s aides, Phrank Shaibu said the documents, against their insinuation, indeed showed that Tinubu presented forged certificate to INEC and that there are quite other issues including birth date mismatch and gender.
Shuaibu lampooned Keyamo, whom he said once sued the Lagos State House of Assembly for clearing Tinubu over certificate forgery allegation but is now defending him on same reason.
The Atiku’s aide, however, llooked forward to the CSU deposition before the US court to finally nail the President.
President Tinubu used the certificate to secure final clearance for participation in the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the All Progressive Congress, APC.
At the deposition in court on Tuesday, CSU’s registar Caleb Westberg, reportedly said that a replacement copy of the Diploma certificate Tinubu submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was not from the Institution.
It will be recalled that David Hundeyin, a Nigerian investigative journalist and founder of West Africa Week, was the journalist that dug out the Tinubu’s Chicago State University certificate saga and has remained the central point of most authentic media coverage on the matter till date.
Hundeyin, on Tuesday, called out an online newspaper (not The DEFENDER) publisher over what he called his misleading headline that tended to show that the document released to Atiku “authenticates” Tinubu’s certificate.
As if touched by the Hundeyin’s scolding of Tuesday, the online newspaper later Wednesday published deposition of the CSU, saying it showed that certificate Tinubu submitted to INEC was forged and quoted the headline while presenting transcript that is suspect.
Starter of the reportage where Nigerian media (excluding The DEFENDER) had either chosen to be silent or twist, David Hundeyin had released what he called certified copies of the deposition transcript via his X handle.
University of Chicago to Chicago State University
In a report by Peoples Gazette, Tinubu had in 1999 allegedly lied under oath when he ran for governor of Lagos, claiming he obtained a degree from the prestigious University of Chicago. However, he managed to escape being held accountable for the breach because he had been elected before it was discovered, and he did not submit a certificate backing his claim, only an affidavit that was later found to be fiction, and the Nigerian Supreme Court said he could not be charged with crimes as a serving governor.
He subsequently stopped claiming attendance at the University of Chicago, holding on instead to a claim that he attended Chicago State University, one of Illinois State University campuses traditionally popular among black people, the online newspaper said.
A spokesman for the president was not immediately available for reaction to Tuesday night development but the president’s allies have suggested publicly that the evidence was inconsequential and propagated the Supreme Court’s readiness to throw it out.
The president’s allies are also banking on the muddled circumstances of the president’s certificate spiel, believing his Nigerian lawyers would be able to convince the Supreme Court to focus more on the school’s position that Tinubu was a student rather than how he came about parading a forged certificate.
How Tinubu’s lawyers misled section of the Nigerian press
Monday evening, shortly after the school dumped records into the electronic filing portal used by lawyers to all parties, Tinubu’s team reportedly circulated a misrepresented account of the documents, successfully misleading some media outlets to run a claim that the school had authenticated his certificate.
The Lawyer Enahoro-Ebah angle
They also said a replacement was issued to Tinubu on June 27, 1997, in what seemed to be a reference to the certificate the school had submitted following a 2022 subpoena obtained from a state court by Nigerian lawyer Mike Enahoro-Ebah.
Mr Enahoro-Ebah received the certificate, dated June 27, 1979, alongside all academic records of Tinubu from CSU in August 2022. But the certificate was signed by Elnora Daniel and Niva Lubin, who were not at the school in 1979 and carried June 27, 1979, as its issuance date.
After comparing the certificate he was given by CSU to the certificate Tinubu submitted to INEC, dated June 22, 1979, Mr Enahoro-Ebah promptly returned to Nigeria with the records and filed a criminal complaint against Tinubu for forgery. But the case was stalled in an Abuja court for months before the election and has not been heard even months after the election.
Atiku Abubakar used the conflicting records to approach the federal court in Chicago for a subpoena as part of his ongoing case against Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Nigeria, culminating in Tuesday October 3 deposition that established Tinubu forged his certificate in violation of the Constitution.
Nigerian Constitution’s position
It will be recalled that President Bola Tinubu was narrowly declared the winner of the February 25 presidential election, and he was only sworn in on May 29. But today’s development could all but mark a putative end to his presidency due to the constitutional proscription against the submission of a fake certificate to the electoral office, the keenly constructed media report went deep citing constitutional proofs.
Section 137 (1)(j) of the Nigerian Constitution (amended in 2010) specifically stated that no one would be legitimately elected president of Nigeria if the person “has presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission.”
The records obtained from the school, the deposition and other material collected through the U.S. legal system are now being prepared for onward submission to the Nigeria Supreme Court, where a final decision on the presidential election challenge would be made on or before December 6, 2023.
The Nigerian court challenge banked upon by Tinubu’s allies
While the evidence may appear overwhelming to a plurality of Nigerians, its acceptance would still need to cross a formidable hurdle at the Supreme Court. This is because the court has conventionally rejected the introduction of new material at the top court level that was not previously argued during the initial trial.
Atiku Abubakar himself admitted before two U.S. judges who heard his discovery application that it would be a daunting challenge to convince the Supreme Court to accept the files, yet not entirely improbable.
Abubakar lost at the Court of Appeal, the initial court for presidential election disputes, when a panel of five judges on Wednesday September 6 said his petition was too weak to overturn Tinubu’s election victory.
Tinubu’s lawyers, in the United States, argued against granting Abubakar’s application to extract their client’s records over an admissibility challenge. But Justice Nancy Maldonado, nonetheless, said in her Saturday September 30 judgment that the records should be released, and any questions about usefulness would be answered by the Nigerian Supreme Court.
Abubakar filed the application to obtain Tinubu’s Chicago State University records and depose its officials on August 2, 2023, coming under Section 1782, the statute that allows the U.S. to turn over records “for use in a proceeding before a foreign tribunal.”
Some of the transcript below:
