5 reasons why Tinubu does not want Chicago University to hand over academic records to Atiku

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's legal battle with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has reached a fever pitch.

Atiku is challenging Tinubu over the authenticity of his academic records at the Chicago State University (CSU), where he claimed to have graduated in 1979.

Last week, Atiku got a favourable ruling from a US court in Illinois ordering the CSU to release the academic records of Tinubu to Atiku.

However, Tinubu has filed an appeal before the court to block Atiku from getting a hold on his academic records.

In this short article, we'll highlight five reasons Tinubu wants to avoid Atiku possessing his academic records.

1. Irrelevancy in court

President Tinubu's legal representatives have always maintained that the availability of their client's academic records at the CSU is irrelevant in court.

This is because his academic records have rarely been accepted in court as evidence in the past.

According to Premium Times, Tinubu's New York-based lawyer, Oluwole Afolabi, said: “the Nigerian election proceedings and the Nigerian courts have explicitly been unreceptive to the discovery.”

2. Invasion of Privacy

President Tinubu finds the relentless request for his academic records invasive and intrusive.

Tinubu's legal attorney said: "Atiku’s request is unduly intrusive because it allows Applicant (Atiku) to conduct a fishing expedition into Intervenor’s private, confidential, and protected educational records.”

3. Past Misuse of Records

In Tinubu's appeal, he told the US Court that his political archrivals had used his academic records to attack him. He said they unlawfully obtained his academic records and used them to attack him during political campaigns.

4. Not required for foreign cases

As reported by Punch, Tinubu's appeal asked the court to set aside Atiku's request for his academic records because it lacks relevance in a foreign proceeding.

He said: “Even if a narrow subset of information can be considered ‘for use’ in the foreign proceeding, that is limited to the diploma submitted to INEC.
Fishing expeditions into other documents and more document productions must be precluded.”

5. Fishing Expedition

Meanwhile, Tinubu's legal representative argued that the application of Atiku only requested Tinubu's CSU diploma.

However, the court's ruling went beyond that by ordering the release of other academic records.