Nigeria’s minister for foreign affairs, Yusuf Tuggar has said the Nigerian government is not interested in the controversy about President Bola Tinubu’s academic records from the Chicago State University (CSU).
The Minister said the Tinubu administration does not have time to waste on such “frivolous issues.”
While speaking on Channels TV Sunrise Daily programme on Wednesday, Tuggar said that Nigerians should show more concern about the prevailing economic travails rather than waste time “about some certificate; whether there is a ‘T’ missing or an ‘i’ hasn’t been dotted.”
He added that despite the certificate saga, Tinubu’s presidency is welcomed by the international community.
“The foreign leaders that we’ve been engaging and the international organisations clearly are disinterested in wasting time on such,” the Minister said.
What you should know…
The CSU turned over copies of Tinubu’s records to Atiku Abubakar on Monday following an order by a district court in Chicago, US.
Tinubu’s attorneys fought hard to stop the extraction of the documents – requested by Atiku for use in the Supreme Court in his challenge against Tinubu’s election in February and its affirmation by the Court of Appeal in September – but failed.
Part of the documents presented to Atiku’s legal team includes copies of certificates with redacted names issued to other persons about the same time Tinubu finished from the school in 1979, Tinubu’s admission letter, and a letter dated June 27, 2022, confirming that he attended the university from August 1977 to June 1979 and was awarded a BSc in Business Administration with Honours.
During a deposition [process of taking a sworn, out-of-court oral testimony of a witness] of CSU officials in the courtroom on Tuesday, Caleb Westberg, the CSU registrar, said the school does not have the diploma certificate Tinubu submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as part of his qualifications to run for the presidential election held in February.
Westberg said vendors may be responsible for the certificate Tinubu presented to INEC. “When there is a replacement diploma, it is done by outside vendors,” he said.
The registrar said he believes “the Bola Tinubu who attended CSU is the same person who is the president of Nigeria today” because “he matched the records in the file against the information provided by the student or on behalf of the student.”
On the controversy about Tinubu’s gender, Westberg said: “Tinubu applied to the university as a male and a letter of admission was issued to a male.
“There were materials in Mr. Tinubu’s records that show that he was a male. I see the application to CSU. Mr Tinubu identified himself as a male. His letter of admission identified him as a male. It says: ‘Dear Mr. Tinubu’.”
Speaking on Tinubu’s date of birth, he admitted to some discrepancies but called it a ‘mistake’.
“I see the entry on APC’s website wherein President Bola Tinubu was said to have been born in Lagos on March 29, 1952,” Westberg said.
“I am not aware of the fact that in the form that he submitted to INEC, he claimed a different nationality or date of birth.
“Our records show that he was born on March 29th. One has ‘1954’ while the other shows ‘1952.’ From time to time, people do make mistakes when making such entries.”
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