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General News of Wednesday, 13 September 2023

Source: www.legit.ng

Fact Check: Chicago State University deleted its 1979 yearbook to protect Tinubu?

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The claim that a video proves Chicago State University(CSU) has deleted a record of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s graduating year from its website is false.

According to Africa Check, a 32-second video on Facebook and social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) since late August 2023 alleged that CSU S removed its 1979 yearbook from its website in an attempted cover-up meant to protect President Tinubu.

In the video, a person was scrolling a website of old CSU yearbooks from 1971 to 1980, with only the 1979 yearbook missing.

The video has been posted on Facebook and X with captions such as: “What happened to Chicago state university 1979 Yearbook? So no one graduated 1979 or why is 1979 not accessible on net? Why did Chicago state university wipeout 1979 Yearbook? @ChicagoState @atiku @peterobi @chude__ @PIDOMNIGERIA #AllEyesOnTheJudiciary”

“CHICAGO STATE UNIVERSITY AS AN ACCOMPLICE TO FRAUD: Bola said he graduated from CSU in 1979. Suddenly, the 1979 yearbook has disappeared from the CSU website. This means CSU is concealing a fraud so that they can partake in eating "THE FORBIDEN FRUIT." Well, Fraud is Time bound”

Video not from Chicago State University

It was gathered that the site scrolled in the video isn’t csu.edu but a page from Ancestry.com.

Africa Check reported that Ancestry is a genealogical website that helps people connect to family and friends and has no known connection with CSU.

The video showed text at the top of the Ancestry page with the assumption that it’s from CSU.

The text reads: "Curious about what your relatives who went to Chicago State University were like during their school years? Choose from the 9 yearbooks available for Chicago State University below to start exploring the extensive Yearbooks collection on Ancestry®.

"To find a family member, enter information such as their First Name, Last Name, and where they lived into the U.S. School Yearbooks database – even a guess can help."

The video did not show the Ancestry masthead and towards the end, when the intro appears, the person quickly scrolls backwards.

The few CSU yearbooks available on Ancestry are uploaded by the site’s users and not the university. The checking platform reported that a Wayback Machine archive of the Ancestry page shows that the page hasn’t been changed since at least July 2022.

This is about 6 months before the February 25 presidential election in Nigeria.

Conclusion

The video is misleading and the claim is false as CSU doesn’t keep yearbooks on its website. Therefore, the American university couldn’t have deleted the yearbook for 1979, or any other year.