Chicago State University (CSU) has provided a deposition concerning the release of President Bola Tinubu’s academic records. This deposition is in response to a request by Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last election. Abubakar had subpoenaed CSU to release Tinubu’s academic records to be used in a legal challenge against Tinubu’s election victory.

Caleb Westberg, the university registrar and deponent/witness, stated that he could not comment on the certificate submitted by Tinubu to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) because he did not see it. Westberg emphasized that CSU typically does not keep diplomas, and in the U.S., diplomas are considered ceremonial documents. He explained that certified documents from CSU came from their files.

Westberg suggested that the certification of documents is more common in Nigeria and that he was not aware of any previous instances where CSU had been requested to certify a document. He also noted that mistakes in data entries can occur from time to time.

Regarding the gender of the individual who attended CSU, Westberg stated that Bola Tinubu applied to the university as a male, and his letter of admission identified him as a male. He emphasized that their records show that he was born on March 29, although there were discrepancies in the year (1952 and 1954) in different documents.

The deposition was part of the ongoing legal challenge to President Bola Tinubu’s election victory, with allegations of discrepancies in his academic records and eligibility to contest the election. The academic records provided by CSU show that Tinubu graduated from the university in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, accounting, and management.