The BBC has stated that there is no evidence to suggest that President Bola Tinubu forged his academic records from Chicago State University (CSU), which were submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2023 presidential election.
In a report by the BBC’s Global Disinformation Team, it was confirmed that there is no evidence of forgery in Tinubu’s academic records. The controversy surrounding the authenticity of these records arose when a United States magistrate ordered CSU to release Tinubu’s academic records to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Although CSU’s registrar, Caleb Westberg, did not dispute the authenticity of the President’s certificate, he noted that the copy submitted to INEC did not come directly from the institution.
Atiku, who contested against Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election, accused the President of falsifying his academic record. Peter Obi, a former governor and presidential candidate of the Labour Party, also called on Tinubu to address the matter.
Tinubu’s lawyers maintained that the documents would not be relevant in Atiku’s appeal.
The BBC’s findings revealed that the Social Security Number in Tinubu’s transcript from CSU matched the information in other documents where his gender was indicated as male. However, the released documents raised questions about Tinubu’s birth date and his secondary school.
One of the documents indicated that Tinubu attended Government College Lagos in 1970, but information available on the school’s website states that it was established in 1974.
The report also noted discrepancies in the birth dates found in some of the released documents, which did not match Tinubu’s official birth date of March 29, 1952. Tinubu’s CSU transcript indicated his birth date as March 29, 1954, while his undergraduate admissions application form listed it as March 29, 1955.
During Westberg’s deposition on the forms submitted to INEC, Atiku’s lawyer questioned the date of birth on the certificate, as Tinubu had provided his date of birth as March 29, 1952. Westberg suggested that the discrepancies might have been due to human error.
The BBC contacted CSU with questions about the diplomas, and the institution responded by expressing confidence in the veracity and integrity of their records regarding Tinubu’s attendance and graduation.
