President Bola Tinubu has said a clerical error was responsible for discrepancies on the certificate issued to him by the Chicago State University.
According to filings by Oluwole Afolabi and Christopher Carmichael, Tinubu’s lawyers, 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 claim is in their response to a suit by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar seeking the disclosure of Tinubu’s academic records from the university.
A US court had given Tinubu uptil August 23, to make a formal filing on why his records should not be released to the former vice president.
The president claimed that he holds a bachelor of science degree in business administration from the Chicago State University.
But Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the February presidential election, alleged that Tinubu’s academic records were forged.
“Unfortunately, in responding to the illegal and invalid subpoena, CSU made several errors,” the president’s lawyers said.
“CSU issued a new diploma for Bola A. Tinubu, but incorrectly wrote the date of graduation as June 27, 1979.
“The correct date was June 22, 1979, but that scrivener’s error – along with a change in the CSU logo, the font on the diploma, and leadership at CSU who signed the diploma created the appearance of differences between an earlier issued diploma and the one issued in response to the 2022 subpoena.”
The former vice-president is also seeking the credentials Tinubu submitted to CSU before he was admitted into the university.