How Chicago varsity responded to Atiku’s request for Tinubu’s records

The Chicago State University on Monday released the academic records of President Bola Tinubu following requests by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

This followed the order by an Illinois court instructing the varsity to release the academic records as requested by Atiku, who is the Peoples Democratic Party candidate in the February 25, 2023 presidential election.

The PUNCH reports that the United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois ruled in favour of Atiku and ordered the Chicago State University to release President Bola Tinubu’s academic record on Monday.

But Tinubu’s lawyers insisted that the documents would not be relevant in Atiku’s appeal against Tinubu at the Supreme Court.

The PUNCH reports that Atiku had earlier secured an order from a US magistrate for CSU to make Tinubu’s academic records available to his legal team.

The magistrate, Jeffrey Gilbert, had directed Tinubu’s alma mater to provide all relevant and non-privileged documents to Atiku’s legal team within two days.

But in the CSU documents, which went viral late Monday night, the institution responded to Atiku’s four requests.

In response to Atiku’s first request for “A true and correct copy of any diploma for a Bachelor of Science degree issued by CSU in 1979,” the US varsity said: “The documents responsive to this request which CSU, after diligent search, has been able to locate are produced herewith and Bates labelled CSU 0001 through CSU 0007. The students’ names on these diplomas have been redacted for privacy reasons.”

On the second request, “A true and correct copy of any diploma issued by CSU in 1979 to Tinubu,” the varsity said , “CSU does not, in the ordinary course, keep copies of student diplomas, and after the diligent search cannot locate a copy of the original diploma it prepared for Mr Tinubu in 1979, hence, has no documents responsive to this request.”

Responding to the third request seeking the release of true and correct copies of the diplomas issued by CSU other than (Tinubu) contained in the same font, seal, signatures and wording, the CSU said, “The documents responsive to this request which CSU, after diligent search, has been able to locate are produced herewith and Bates labelled CSU 0008 through CSU 0010. The students’ names on these diplomas have been redacted for privacy reasons. The CSU is also producing Bates labelled as CSU 0011 and CSU 0012, diplomas prepared for other CSU students (with their names redacted for privacy) which match the format of the Tinubu’s replacement diploma dated June 27, 1997.”

Also, while responding to Atiku’s fourth request for “true and correct copies of any CSU documents relating to Tinubu’s that were certified by Jamar C. Orr, Esq., including with limitation, the documents in Exhibit D to the Uwais Declaration, and all communications to or from CSU concerning the certification of such documents by Jamar C. Orr, Esq., during the period August 1, 2022 to August 1, 2023.

The CSU said, “The respondents’ documents certified by Mr. Orr are produced herewith and Bates labelled CSU 0013 through CSU 0032, CSU’s prior objection to the communication aspect of this request was sustained by the Court (see Doc. 40 at pp, 28-29 and Doc. 54 at p, 32), hence no documents responsive to that subject are being produced.”

As of the time of filing this report, the camp of the Peoples Democratic Party candidate has yet to react to the documents released by the CSU.