JOURNALIST101 has obtained the certified true copy of the discovery deposition by the counsel of Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the last General election.
The 155-page document is in compliance with an order given by Judge Nancy Maldonado of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois directing CSU officials to provide Mr Tinubu’s records and avail themselves for deposition to authenticate them on Tuesday.
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Mr Westberg attested under oath that the institution did not award the June 22, 1979 certificate the Nigerian leader submitted to Nigeria’s electoral body, INEC on June 17, 2022.
The CSU registrar explicitly stated (pages 37-44) that Mr Tinubu did not apply for a replacement certificate, nor was he ever issued one.
Instead, he explained that the June 27, 1997 date was only a typographical error in Mr Tinubu’s replacement certificate which was issued to Nigerian lawyer Mike Enahoro-Ebah in an earlier subpoena filed in August 2022.
“That is correct” was Mr Westberg’s response when asked whether he meant to write “1979” instead of the “1997” date on the replacement certificate issued to Mr Enahoro-Ebah.
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“I’ll state on the record as the author that is my typo,” the CSU registrar answered in his deposition late Tuesday as he admitted and took responsibility for the error.
But as of early Tuesday morning, the majority of Nigerian news outlets had begun disseminating false information, claiming that Mr Tinubu had received the replacement diploma in 1997 rather than Mr Enahoro-Ebah. Furthermore, they erroneously claimed that CSU had authenticated the president’s diploma hours ahead of the scheduled deposition at 5:00 p.m. CDT, or 11:00 p.m. Nigerian time on Tuesday.
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Asked how Mr. Tinubu got the certificate he presented to INEC, Mr Westberg, posited that there were numerous companies on the Internet that specialise in the business of forgery.
“I cannot provide a name of an entity that does such· However, you can Google this easily. There are many companies that do this for folks.”
