Judge Nancy Maldonado has ruled in favour of Atiku Abubakar.
She has ordered the Chicago State University to release Bola A. Tinubu’s Academic Records.
She gave tomorrow (Monday 2nd October) as the deadline.
Judge Maldonado said that any request for a stay of this judgement from Tinubu’s lawyers, will be denied.
Tinubu and Abubakar have been at loggerheads over the discrepancies in the Nigerian leader’s CSU records, as the institution in response to a previous subpoena in 2022, released documents showing a female Bola Tinubu from South West college was admitted to the school to pursue a degree in accounting.
Also at issue was CSU’s adamant refusal to authenticate the diploma Mr Tinubu submitted to Nigeria’s electoral body, INEC, to be genuine or falsified, which has fuelled allegations of forgery and perjury for which Mr Abubakar is seeking to void Mr Tinubu’s election victory at Nigeria’s Supreme Court.
Further confusing Mr Abubakar were the signatures on the diploma that Mr Tinubu submitted to INEC, which were those of two women, Elnora Daniel and Niva Lubin who joined CSU in 1998 and 1996, nearly 20 years after the president graduated in 1979.
“The June 22 diploma has indicia of forgery,” Angela Liu, the U.S. attorney representing Mr Abubakar, told the court on Wednesday.
Judge Jeffrey Gilbert on September 20 had ordered CSU to release Mr Tinubu’s records but the president begged Ms Maldonado to delay the order’s enforcement, pleading severe and irreparable damage to his life.
On September 6, the presidential elections petitions tribunal upheld Mr Tinubu’s election victory. However, Mr Abubakar strongly believes the decision was deeply flawed and a miscarriage of justice, leading him to file an appeal at the nation’s Supreme Court where he plans to use the CSU records to show the president may have committed forgery and perjury, two serious allegations that, if proven, would not only result in Mr Tinubu’s dismissal but also could permanently dent his political career.
