Lawyer to former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, in the 2023 presidential elections, Angela Liu, has provided what she called incontrovertible evidence in a US court to prove that President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC presented fake certificates from Chicago State University.
The counsel also said the signature seen on one of the certificates was forged.
Atiku is seeking the release of Tinubu’s academic records from the University which he said would aid his case at the court in Nigeria as a result of the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, which he’s disputing.
Tinubu was declared the winner of the controversial election.
Filings by Tinubu’s counsel, Oluwole Afolabi and Christopher Carmichael, blamed an unnamed clerk for the error on the date he graduated from the University.
They were however silent on why three of the school administrators signed one of the certificates and two different administrators signed the other.
Following Tinubu’s response, Atiku’s counsel, Angela Liu raised key questions regarding “glaring differences found on the certificates” noting that, “The document marked ‘A’ is the certificate submitted by Tinubu to INEC. This certificate is in every material respect, exactly the same as the document marked ‘B’ except for the following.
“Document ‘A’ is signed by at least 3 people whereas ‘B’ 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,” she presented her findings.
She submitted 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’.”
Quoting the school’s courses available for studies as found on the school’s website, she referenced that, “The College of Business offers a contemporary business program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration or Masters in Business Administration (MBA).”
She noted that “nowhere is there any reference to ‘business and administration’ based on the school’s website.
The lawyer argued that it was not possible for Elnora D. Daniel to be among those who signed both certificates because she was only the president of the university between 1998 and 2008.
In her argument in defence of Atiku, she said one of the three people who signed one of the certificates, Elnora D. Daniel was not with the school in 1979 except only in 1998 and 2008 when she was the president of the university.
She then posited there was forgery to cover up a glaring act of fraud.
“She 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,” the lawyer said.
Other discrepancies noted from the examination of the certificates, which she said it’s hard to say if one is original or both are, include different letter fonts, logos and s*x among others.
The court would make its decision in a few weeks to either compel the school to release Tinubu’s academic records or deny Atiku the request made to the school.
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