Angela Liu, counsel to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar in the US, says Chicago State University has provided two similar certificates indicating that President Bola Tinubu attended its institution.
Liu said while the first certificate was signed by three people, the other one was signed by two people.
She was speaking in response to a submission by Tinubu’s lawyers.
According to filings by Oluwole Afolabi and Christopher Carmichael, counsel to Tinubu, 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 counsel of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate said while one document asserts that Tinubu was issued the certificate on June 22, 1979, another suggests that the president received the degree on June 27, 1979.
The former vice-president is seeking a disclosure of the president’s certificate from the US university. The documents he is making his case on – tendered at the US court and presidential election tribunal – were seen by TheCable.
“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,” Liu said.
“Document ‘A’ is signed by at least 3 people whereas ‘B’ is signed by only 2 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.
“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’.”
The lawyer said CSU’s website reads: “The College of Business offers a contemporary business program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration or Masters in Business Administration (MBA)”, adding that “nowhere is there any reference to ‘business and administration” throughout the 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.
“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,” she said.
The lawyer also expressed dismay that both certificates bear different letter fonts and logos of the university.