No evidence of diploma forgery by Tinubu – BBC report

Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not forge his college diploma, according to a BBC investigation.

The BBC’s Global Disinformation Team analysed the academic records released by Chicago State University (CSU) last week, following a legal challenge by Mr Tinubu’s main rival in the 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar.

Mr Abubakar, who lost the election to Mr Tinubu in February, had accused the president of falsifying the CSU diploma of Bachelor of Science in Business Administration awarded in 1979 that he submitted to the electoral authority (Inec).

To obtain evidence for his case in Nigeria, Mr Abubakar approached a US court in August, requesting it to compel CSU to release Mr Tinubu’s academic records through a process called discovery, where the parties exchange information including documents ahead of a trial.

The US court decided that the discovery should proceed and ordered CSU to submit several documents related to Mr Tinubakar’s diploma, including copies of diplomas with the same font, seal, signatures and wording as Mr Tinubu’s diplomas.

However, CSU stated that it could not find the original diploma they issued to Mr Tinubu in 1979, because they do not keep copies of diplomas already collected by students. Instead, they produced a replacement diploma dated 27 June 1979 for Mr Tinubu.

The BBC’s Global Disinformation Team compared the replacement diploma with the diplomas of other students who graduated from CSU in 1979 and found no significant differences in terms of font, seal, signatures and wording.

“Some social media users in Nigeria allege that the deposition and the diplomas released by CSU confirm that the diploma submitted to Inec by Mr Tinubu was forged. This claim was also repeated by one of Mr Abubakar’s lawyers, Kalu Kalu, at a press conference last week.

“We found there was no evidence to support this claim.

“We analysed the diploma. It appears in fact that its bottom part was not included during the photocopy process,” the BBC said.

Jamar Orr, a former staff member of CSU who certified some of the documents released by the university also confirmed that he had verified Mr Tinubu’s academic records and that they were authentic.

The BBC’s investigation concluded that there was no evidence to support the claim that Mr Tinubu forged his college diploma. The allegations against him were based on conflicting information about his date of birth, which appeared differently on various documents. However, this discrepancy could be explained by clerical errors or changes in the Nigerian calendar system over time.

The BBC also said, “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.

“But the BBC 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.

“It has the words ‘with honors’ – a match with the diploma with the same detail submitted by the president to INEC.”