President Bola Tinubu Certificate saga, Chicago State University (CSU) has finally released Academic records of President Bola Tinubu to his political opponent, Atiku Abubakar, in line with an order of a United States court.Read more.

The university, on Monday, presented to Atiku’s legal team, a cache of documents connected to Mr Tinubu’s education at the institution and copies of certificates with redacted names issued to other persons about the same time the Nigerian president finished from the school in 1979.

It also contained Mr 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 Mr Tinubu was awarded Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with Honours on 22 June 1979.

Meanwhile, the District Court in Northern Illinois, had in its judgement delivered on Saturday, given the university up till 12 noon on Monday to deliver the documents to Atiku.

The judge, Nancy Maldonado, gave the other after dismissing Mr Tinubu’s objection in the judgement.

Ms Maldonando dismissed Mr Tinubu’s objection to the 20 September decision of a magistrate judge of the court, Jeffery Gilbert.

She affirmed Mr Gilbert’s ruling, ordering the CSU to release Mr Tinubu’s academic records as requested by Atiku. She insisted Atiku had the right to have access to the records.

Complying with the court order on Monday, the university produced four sets of documents copies of which went viral online on Monday. Phrank Shuaibu, a spokesperson to Atiku, confirmed the documents as those received from the university.

In response to Abubakar’s third request — which was to release a copy of the diplomas issued in 1997 — the university said the certificates match the format of the Tinubu replacement dated June 27, 1997.

“The documents responsive to this request which CSU, after diligent search, has been able to locate are produced herewith and Bates labelled CSU 0008 through CSU 0010. The students’ names on these diplomas have been redacted for privacy reasons. CSU is also producing, Bates labelled as CSU 0011 and 0012, diplomas produced for other CSU students (with their names redacted for privacy) which match the format of the Tinubu replacement dated June 27, 1997,” the university wrote.

Several samples of diplomas (certificates) awarded in 1979 to other students were released by the university as demanded by Abubakar.

Tinubu had previously claimed to have lost his original certificates but presented a replacement for his CSU diploma to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2023 presidential election.

Atiku’s Aims for demanding Tinubu’s Academic Records

Atiku had asked for the documents for possible use in Nigerian courts to support his claim that Mr Tinubu forged a diploma certificate he claimed to have obtained from CSU in 1979 and submitted to Nigeria’s electoral body, INEC, for the 2023 presidential election.

Atiku had argued that authenticity of the certificates presented by Mr Tinubu goes to the root of the latter’s qualification to contest the last presidential election.

Mr Tinubu did indeed graduate from CSU in 1979

The release of the documents by CSU, however, confirms that Mr Tinubu did indeed graduate from CSU in 1979 although observers say the released documents raised other questions.

Mr Tinubu’s second reason was that Atiku’s request “is unduly intrusive because it allows Applicant (Atiku) to conduct a fishing expedition into Intervenor’s private, confidential, and protected educational records.”