President Bola Tinubu has finally agreed to release his university certificate to his political opponent, Atiku Abubakar, but has pleaded with a federal judge in the United States to block all other details, especially the gender and admission records, from being disclosed.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that the decision comes amid the legal battle at the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago.
The case was brought by Atiku, who alleged that Tinubu was not eligible to be president because he did not have the required educational qualifications.
Tinubu initially resisted releasing his certificate after a magistrate judge on September 19, ordered Chicago State University to provide the document to Abubakar.
He pleaded severe harm to his life and obtained a stay of the magistrate judge’s order.
In a statement on Monday, Tinubu’s lawyers said that they had agreed to release the certificate in order to avoid “further delays” in the case. However, they reiterated their request for the judge to block all other details from being disclosed.
“There is harm in allowing discovery on issues and documents outside the diploma,” Tinubu’s lawyers said in their full briefing to the court.
The identity of who was admitted into Chicago State University in the 1970s has been an issue after college transcripts emerged that indicated the school admitted a female Bola Tinubu from Southwest College Chicago in 1977.
Abubakar has alleged that Tinubu forged his certificate, while Tinubu has insisted that Bola Tinubu graduated and got a certificate from the university.
