The Chicago State University has finally released the academic records of President Bola Tinubu.
The records were released following a request by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who contested against Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Atiku had requested the documents from the university to support the allegation that Tinubu forged his academic certificate with the hope that if the allegation is successfully proven, Tinubu’s election would be overturned on forgery grounds.
Some of the documents Atiku requested include Tinubu’s admission and acceptance records at CSU; his dates of attendance, degrees, awards and honours received at the institution.
However, on Monday, October 2, 2023, the university produced three out of the four sets of documents Atiku’s legal team requested.
The documents contained Tinubu’s admission records, and a letter confirming his attendance at the university from August 1977 and June 1979.
The letter stated that Tinubu majored in accounting and was awarded a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with Honours on 22 June 1979.
Before the release of the documents, Tinubu’s legal team had unsuccessfully tried to block Atiku from accessing his academic records at the Chicago State University after the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ordered institution to release Tinubu’s credentials to his political opponent.
The President at some point pleaded with a United States District Judge, Nancy Maldonado to order the university to limit the privilege information requested by Atiku’s legal team to only his certificate.
Tinubu argued that Atiku’s interest in his educational records constitutes an intrusion of his privacy.
But Maldonado ruled in favour of Atiku, saying the former VP’s interests in the credentials outweighed Tinubu’s privacy interest.
