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The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flag-bearer in the 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, has doubled down on his certificate forgery allegation against President Bola Tinubu, claiming that the presidency has twisted facts to mislead Nigerians.
The former Vice President is in possession of Tinubu's academic records, which were handed over to him by the Chicago State University (CSU) on Monday, October 2, 2023.
Atiku fought a protracted legal tussle in the United States courts to get the sought documents he intends to tender as evidence at the Supreme Court that the President submitted a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The PDP candidate and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, had filed 86 grounds of appeal at the apex court to overturn the Presidential Election Petitions Court’s judgment of September 6 that affirmed Tinubu’s victory.
In a statement by Paul Ibe, the Media Adviser to the former Vice President, on Sunday, October 8, 2023, Atiku alleged that some media aides of the President have come out openly to push a false narrative regarding the certificate saga.
He also accused some media houses of persistent slanting of their story to justify a corrupted interpretation of the facts in the deposition by the CSU.
According to him, “On page 26 of the deposition which is publicly available, the Registrar of the Chicago State University, Caleb Westberg, under oath, was asked a simple question that, “CSU has determined that it does not have a true and correct copy of the diploma issued to Bola Tinubu is 1979, correct? To which the Registrar responded, That’s correct.
“Also, on page 27, a similar question was put to Mr. Westberg: So, CSU, after going through every diploma, was unable to find an authentic copy of any diploma that CSU issued to Tinubu in 1979. Is that correct? The CSU Registrar, in his response, said: We did not find any diploma issued by CSU in 1979 to Mr Tinubu,” Ibe's statement partly read.