Chicago State Varsity President Refusing To Release Tinubu Academic Records In Bonus Scandal

The President of the Chicago State University, Zaldwaynaka Scott, who has refused to release academic records of President Bola Tinubu being sought by his fierce presidential opponent, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has been caught in a bonus scandal.

Scott was awarded a $50,000 bonus last month, considered unmerited according to professors and senior members of the school citing several strikes where they had pressed for a pay rise without fruition.

The president, receiving the pay, earned $500,000 in July for a full year in the school that the board justified refusal to increase staff pay due to underfunding and financial strain.

Professors at Chicago State University are reported to be among the lowest-paid public university faculty in the state and staged a 10-day strike in April to demand higher compensation.

According to the National Education Association, US, tenured professors at Chicago State University as of 2021 earned on average $88,000 a year.

In the lead up to the strike, the university said in a statement that, “CSU, like many universities across the country, is experiencing significant financial strain post pandemic.

“In 2023, we are anticipating a budget gap — and [faculty union] leaders are aware of the University’s financial situation,” it stated before the strike.

Scott was hired as president of Chicago State in 2018 in the predominantly black and brown university.

During the strike, faculty union president Valerie Goss said, “Our students come from Black and Brown communities.

“I don’t understand why it is that our students have to endure faculty who are being paid less than faculty at any other institution. This is not an equitable picture.”

Seven in 10 students attending the school are black according to official records, which has set off a chain of negative reaction from the school and black communities as to why Scott a black woman, could earn such a huge bonus.

It’s in Scott’s era that Tinubu who was declared winner of the 2023 presidential election under the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, was issued a new certificate in 2022, which is part of the documents Atiku is seeking their authenticity.

Tinubu claimed he attended the university and tendered a certificate he said the university issued to him bearing 22nd June 1979 and another bearing 27th June 1979, according to findings by Atiku’s counsel Angela Liu, who made a deposition to a US court seeking full release of all documents linked to him in the university whose activities since Scott became president has been criticised as opaque and less than transparent.

Atiku also found that Tinubu received a replacement certificate in 2022, under Scott’s tenure as president who has now received what has been considered an unmerited bonus despite financial distress.

How the university could make enough funds to pay more than double her statutory bonus is also unknown at a time she has been under serious pressure to clear the university’s name about the controversy surrounding the Nigerian president.

In the past week, Nigerians took to social media to demand the release of Tinubu’s academic records. Scott, unable to contain the barrage of messages, locked her X account while the university also locked its X account to deny the public access to send messages to it.

Tinubu through his counsels has however argued that an unknown clerk was responsible for the discrepancies in his academic records in the school, the school under Scott has refused to clarify and provide full details of the scandal.

But Atiku picked holes in the defence through his lawyer, who argued that, “Document ‘A’ (first university issued) is signed by at least 3 people whereas ‘B’ (second certificate issued) is signed by only two people.

“The document marked ‘E’ states that Tinubu was issued a certificate on 22nd June 1979 but then proceeded to forward a copy of a certificate (‘B’) dated 27th June 1979.

“Please note that ‘A’ is actually dated 22nd June 1979, but this document did not emanate from CSU. Only ‘B’ did,” Atiku had argued his findings before the court.

He further argued that, “It is clear that either ‘A’ or ‘B’ is fake (if not both). You cannot have two certificates issued by the same university, to the same person, for the same course of study, but issued on different dates and signed by two different sets of people.

“The documents ‘A’ and ‘B’ both state that Tinubu graduated with a BSc in ‘Business AND Administration’, whereas document ‘E’ (which came from CSU) states that he graduated with a BSc in ‘Business Administration’.

Atiku further pointed out that one of the three persons who signed one of the certificates, Elnora D. Daniel, “was neither president of the university in 1979 – when the certificate was purportedly issued – nor was she president in 2022, when the replacement certificates were issued.”

Chicago State Board of Trustees Chair Andrea Zopp has however defender the bonus in a statement saying, “The Board noted wide-ranging accomplishments in their evaluation, including a full approval from the institution’s once-in-a-decade accreditation review, multi-prong student success strategy that has raised CSU’s retention and graduation rates, and increased federal funding for the University and neighbouring community.”