There is no evidence that the Chicago State University (CSU) diploma presented by Nigeria's President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to the country's electoral commission was forged, the BBC's Global Disinformation Team has said.
Allegations that President Tinubu's certificate was faked went viral on social media following the release by Chicago State University of his academic records last week.According to BBC, the release of the president's academic documents was the culmination of a judicial case filed in August by one of his main rivals in February's presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party .
In response to request three, CSU stated that it produced for Tinubu a replacement diploma dated 27 June 1979. It also released diplomas awarded to other students that bore similar font, seal, signatures and wordings as Mr Tinubu's diplomas. Some social media users in Nigeria allege that the deposition and the diplomas released by CSU confirm that the diploma submitted to Inec by Mr Tinubu was forged. This claim was also repeated by one of Abubakar's lawyers, Kalu Kalu, at a press conference last week.It added that the CSU released several diplomas issued between 1979 and 2003 and the team analysed all of them.
"During Mr Westberg's deposition, Mr Atiku's lawyer focused on the copy of the diploma President Tinubu handed to the electoral commission and suggested that it was unlike any of the diplomas released by CSU. "As such, if Tinubu had reordered his diploma in the late 1990s, what he would have been given would look like what was obtainable then.
It said, another claim, made by a fact-checking organisation in Nigeria, was that the diploma Tinubu submitted was not from CSU as its diplomas do not include the phrase"with honors" under the degree name. Another allegation making the rounds on social media is that the person who attended CSU with the name Bola A Tinubu is female.
"One of the documents stated that Tinubu attended Government College Lagos in 1970. However, information available on the school website stated that it was only founded in 1974.
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