Tunde Rahman, Senior Special Assistant on Media to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has posited that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar spent a fortune on an exploratory journey with no outcome.
This is as he said the “defeated” Peoples Democratic Party 2023 presidential candidate had a “pitiful sight to behold on Thursday at the Shehu Yar ‘Adua Centre, Abuja as he sat like a wreck after addressing what he called a world press conference.”
In a lengthy post via X, Rahman submitted that Atiku had gone on a wild goose chase to the United States in search of Tinubu’s Chicago State University (CSU) certificate.
His words: “The former vice president however returned empty-handed after spending a fortune. Atiku himself admitted his exploratory journey was at a hefty cost.
“At the press conference, the Waziri Adamawa discovered no new thing; he found nothing incriminating or untoward against the President. He is only currently engaging in political sophistry. Apparently deluding himself that he came back from the US with a smoking gun, at his press briefing, he sermonised on the important issue of leadership and responsibility. Alhaji Atiku assaulted the memory of the late irrepressible lawyer and human rights activist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, claiming Fawehinmi inspired his shameful, worthless and self-seeking expedition.
“Commending David Hundeyin, the rabble rouser who styles himself as an independent journalist, whose work he also said inspired him, it became apparent that both Atiku and Hundeyin were actually working together to embarrass President Tinubu.
“And you wonder, what morality Alhaji Atiku was preaching. This is the same man who was indicted in the 2009 conviction of his accomplice, former United States Congressman William Jefferson, over bribery charges. Same man whose principal, former President Obasanjo, wrote a damaging testimonial on and whose years in Customs were signposted by corruption allegations.
“It is pertinent at this juncture to clarify some of the issues that emerged from the deposition by President Tinubu’s former school, Chicago State University, in order to understand Atiku’s deliberate and malicious distortion.”
He furthered that, as contained in a deposition made in the Office of Angela Liu, Atiku’s legal counsel, in Chicago, CSU Registrar, Caleb Westberg declared Tinubu “attended and graduated with honours from the institution in 1979. He in fact asserted that President Tinubu is the same person who attended the school from 1977 to 1979.”
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“We believe Bola Tinubu who attended CSU is the same person who is the President of Nigeria today. Tinubu is an unusual name in the US. He matched the records in the file against the information provided by the student or on behalf of the student,” Rahman quoted Westberg as saying.
Rahman continued that, “On the insinuation by Atiku’s lawyers that the Bola Tinubu who attended the school was a female on account of a clerical error spotted against Tinubu’s name, Westberg disclosed that the admission letter issued to the Nigerian President evidently proved he was a male and attended the school between 1977 and 1979.”
Probed further to confirm if the Tinubu that enrolled at the school was a male or female, Rahman said the registrar insisted, “Tinubu applied to the university as a male and a letter of admission was issued to a male. There were materials in Mr. Tinubu’s records that show he was a male in the application to CSU. Mr. Tinubu identified himself as a male. His letter of admission identified him as a male. It says: ‘Dear Mr. Tinubu’.”
The SSA submitted that “in the US, premium is not placed on certificates, otherwise called diplomas, as we do here. Certificates are merely ceremonial. The emphasis is on transcripts. Employers and schools offering admissions for higher education will only ask for previous transcripts.
“In most cases, the certificates are also printed by third party vendors. Many certificates are left uncollected because what is important is the transcript. The CSU has diplomas that students didn’t pick up in its possession.”
“I have the diploma that was made available to Mr. Enahoro-Ebah in our possession because Mr. Tinubu did not pick it up. I do not have the diploma that was submitted to INEC in our possession because he had picked it, ” according to Rahman, Westberg clarified while responding to another question.
“President Tinubu honourably earned his degree and he had no reason to forge the certificate of a degree he had in his kitty. He graduated Summa Cum Laude, with distinction. He was on the Vice Chancellor’s Honour List for all his years in the school. Insinuation by anyone that he forged a certificate he worked for is sad and misleading.
“In the final analysis, it is yet unclear how Atiku plans to benefit from whatever he claims to have brought back from the US. Certificate forgery was not pleaded in his election petition now at the Supreme Court. Without being a lawyer, this is a civil case and I understand you can’t make new pleas or present new evidence in a case that has passed the court of first instance and is at present on appeal at the Supreme Court.
“What the Waziri Adamawa has demonstrated in all of his Shenanigans is that he is a sore loser. Will he gain what he failed to get at the ballot through his present indecent and unpatriotic overseas search and unfounded and hollow discovery, making a mountain where there is even no molehill, uneccesarily heating up the polity and denigrating the Justices of the Supreme Court? I don’t think so!” Rahman detailed in his statement titled ‘Tinubu’s certificate: Setting the records straight.’
