BBC Counters Atiku, Says Tinubu’s Chicago Varsity Certificate Not Forged

The British Broadcasting Corporation Disinformation Team has claimed that out of all disputed documents before Nigerian courts associated with President Bola Tinubu, it is only his date of birth and secondary school that raises questions.

The BBC Disinformation Team Wednesday said its findings showed no evidence that Tinubu forged his Chicago State University academic results submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, contrary to the submissions of Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic party.

Recall that Atiku Abubakar had recently asked the Supreme Court to grant him leave to tender the academic records of President Bola Tinubu given to him by the Chicago State University, United States, (CSU) as fresh evidence in his bid to establish alleged certificate forgery against the president.

Atiku had days ago addressed a press conference, insisting that Tinubu forged his academic credentials and ought to be disqualified from contesting for president or occupying the office on that ground.

Prior to this, the Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja had thrown out Atiku’s petition for lacking in merit while faulting the substantiality of Tinubu’s academic records tendered by Atiku’s legal team through a public interest activist.

Issues surrounding the academic records of the president are now subject to a final pronouncement by the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

But the BBC said the CSU confirmed to its team that it released several diplomas between 1979 and 2003 to Tinubu and it analysed all of them and discovered none was forged.

“During Mr Westberg’s deposition, Mr Atiku’s lawyer focused on the copy of the diploma President Tinubu handed to the electoral commission and suggested that it was unlike any of the diplomas released by CSU.

“However, while Mr Westberg agreed with Ms Liu that the diploma in question does not look like the samples from 1979, he stated that the certificate actually looks like three of the diplomas CSU released to Mr Abubakar. Our analysis confirms this.

“It turns out that the discrepancy in the appearance of the diploma is down to it having been re-issued in the 1990s,” BBC reports.

The BBC added it only found discrepancies with Tinubu’s date of birth and secondary school.

“However, the released documents did raise questions about Mr Tinubu’s birth date and the secondary school he attended.

“One of the documents stated that Mr Tinubu attended Government College Lagos in 1970. However, information available on the school website stated that it was only founded in 1974,” BBC reports.