UPDATED: Fresh Twist As Chicago University Says It Doesn’t Have Certificate Tinubu Presented To INEC

The Chicago State University (CSU) has said it does not have the certificate President Bola Tinubu presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) prior to the 2023 general election.

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.

Daily trust