President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has claimed that a clerical error was responsible for discrepancies on the certificate issued to him by the Chicago State University, CSU.
Tinubu’s lawyers, Oluwole Afolabi and Christopher Carmichael filed that an unidentified clerk of the University made the error about the date the school stated on his recently-issued certificate, thereby creating “the appearance of differences”.
The claim is in their response to a suit by former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar seeking the disclosure of Tinubu’s academic records from the University.
A US court had given Tinubu up till August 23, to make a formal filing on why his records should not be released to the former Vice President.
The President claimed that he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from CSU.
But Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the February Presidential election, alleged that Tinubu’s academic records were forged.
“Unfortunately, in responding to the illegal and invalid subpoena, CSU made several errors.
“CSU issued a new diploma for Bola A. Tinubu, but incorrectly wrote the date of graduation as June 27, 1979.
“The correct date was June 22, 1979, but that scrivener’s error – along with a change in the CSU logo, the font on the diploma, and leadership at CSU who signed the diploma created the appearance of differences between an earlier issued diploma and the one issued in response to the 2022 subpoena”, the President’s lawyers said.
Credible News reports that Atiku is also seeking the credentials Tinubu submitted to CSU before he was admitted into the University.
