While the deposition by the Chicago State University (CSU) registrar, Caleb Westberg that president Bola Tinubu actually graduated from the school, he stated that the degree certificate he submitted to INEC was not issued by the school.
The BBC noted that the copy he gave to the election commission had part of the university logo missing, which Mr Westberg said in his deposition was possibly “cut off” when it was photocopied.
The international media house stated that it’s findings showed that the president did not however, forge the document.
BBC added however, that the documents released by CSU did raise questions about Mr Tinubu’s birth date and the secondary school he attended.
One of the documents stated that Mr Tinubu attended Government College Lagos in 1970. However, information available on the school website stated that it was only founded in 1974.
Aside from the gender discrepancy, the birth dates in some of the released documents differ from the official birth date of President Tinubu, which is 29 March 1952.
His transcript from CSU has his date of birth as 29 March 1954. His undergraduate admissions application form has his date of birth as 29 March 1955.
Mr Atiku’s lawyer said during Mr Westberg’s deposition that on the forms submitted to Inec, Mr Tinubu had given his date of birth as 29 March 1952.
Mr Westberg, during cross-examination, responded that the discrepancies could have been due to human error.
BBC stated that it contacted “Mr Tinubu’s team for comment about the discrepancies and a spokesperson directed us instead to his party – the All Progressives Congress. We then contacted Mr Tinubu’s presidential campaign spokesperson Festus Keyamo, who is also a minister in the government. He did not take our calls or respond to our text and WhatsApp messages.”
Another claim, made by a fact-checking organisation in Nigeria, was that the diploma Mr Tinubu submitted was not from CSU as its diplomas do not include the phrase “with honors” under the degree name, the BBC said.
It found that while this was not reflected in the other diplomas released by CSU, it does appears in Mr Tinubu’s diploma issued in the early 2000s, which was authenticated by Mr Westberg during his deposition.
Another allegation making the rounds on social media is that the person who attended CSU with the name Bola A Tinubu is female.
Mr Tinubu attended Southwest College (now known as Richard J. Daley College) before transferring to CSU in 1976. In Southwest’s transcript, there is an “F” (for “female”) in the column where gender is indicated, leading to claims that it was a woman who attended the school and Mr Tinubu “stole her identity”. Mr Atiku’s lawyer, Mr Kalu, alluded to this in a press conference last week.