President Bola Tinubu has urged Judge Nancy Maldonado of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago to only oder the release of his university certificate to his political opponent Atiku Abubakar, blocking all other details, especially the gender and admission records, among others, of the person who owns the Chicago State University certificate from being disclosed.
Peoples Gazette Reported that Tinubu made the plea at the resumed hearing in the Illinios court on Monday morning, where he had asked for a review of Judge Jeffrey Gilbert’s order on September 19 , asking Chicago State University to release his academic records within two day to Atiku.
The case was brought by Mr Abubakar, who is seeking to establish that Mr Tinubu was not eligible to be Nigerian president despite his purported election in February 2023.
Mr Tinubu is seeking to block full disclosure, pleading that severe harm would be done to his life.
“There is harm in allowing discovery on issues and documents outside the diploma,” Mr Tinubu’s lawyers said in their full briefing to the court seeking a review of Judge Jeffrey Gilbert’s order by Ms Maldonado, a district judge.
The identity of who was admitted into Chicago State University in the 1970s has been a hot issue after college transcripts emerged that indicated the school admitted a female Bola Tinubu from Southwest College Chicago in 1977.
Whereas Mr Tinubu’s lawyers, led by Victor Henderson and Christopher Carmichael, says that the documents Mr Abubakar sought wouldn’t be admissible at the Supreme Court, they nonetheless appeared to anticipate the potential for an unfavourable ruling and consequently gave the judge an alternative direction of giving only an order for the school to certify strictly the certificate the president tendered to run for election.
Mr Gilbert’s ruling last week required CSU administrators to confirm under oath whether or not the certificate Mr Tinubu tendered in Nigeria was genuine. Additionally, the officials were ordered to show a certificate issued to a CSU graduate in 1979, with the person’s identification redacted, and to also turn over communications relating to a letter the school issued to Mr Tinubu in 2022.
In today’s filing, a man, who identified himself as Olajide Adeniji, submitted an affidavit, saying he attended school with Tinubu from 1977 to 1979.
More to follow…
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