Nigeria President Bola Tinubu is fighting to prevent a U.S. court from ordering the release of his Chicago State University (CSU) records, saying they could be used by Nigerian bloggers to tarnish his reputation and undermine his presidency, according to court documents obtained by Peoples Gazette.
Tinubu, who is the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the February 2023 election, has been facing allegations of falsifying his academic credentials and lying about his age, gender, and primary and secondary education.
His main challenger in the election, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has filed an application for order to direct discovery of Tinubu’s CSU records, hoping to expose the inconsistencies and discrepancies in his claims.
Tinubu, however, has opposed the application through his lawyers, arguing that releasing his records would amount to giving “opposition research” or “fodder for news bloggers” who would use them to “attack” his character.
Tinubu’s lawyers cited a previous case in 2022, when a Nigerian lawyer Mike Enahoro-Ebah obtained some records from CSU through a subpoena without court approval. The records showed that a certain Bola Tinubu, born March 29, 1954, who attended the school at the same period as Tinubu claimed in the 1970s, was a female.
The records also contradicted Tinubu’s assertion that he graduated from CSU in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Accounting, and Management. Tinubu had recently removed his primary and secondary education from his records after it was discovered that the schools he listed under oath in his 1999 run for Lagos governor did not exist anywhere in Nigeria.
The records obtained by Mr Ebah were published on independent journalist David Hundeyin’s website in 2022 and went viral on social media platforms such as X, where many Nigerians questioned Tinubu’s eligibility and integrity. The gender controversy also dominated the headlines and sparked public outrage.
Tinubu’s lawyers said that Mr Abubakar’s application was motivated by the same intention to “uncover ‘opposition research’ or provide fodder for news bloggers” rather than to seek justice or truth.
Mr Abubakar said he intends to use the findings from CSU to strengthen his argument at the presidential elections petitions tribunal in Nigeria that Tinubu’s declaration as president by INEC should be nullified based on damning allegations of perjury, narcotics dealing, electoral fraud and so on.
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