Metro

CSU Scandal: No evidence Tinubu’s Chicago certificates were forged— Report

Published

2 months ago

October 12, 2023

A fact-finding mission embarked upon by the BBC has revealed that there is no evidence that the diploma Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu submitted to the country’s electoral commission was forged.

In a report published on Wednesday, the BBC’s Global Disinformation Team. consisting of Nigerian researchers, Chiagozie Nwonwu, Fauziyya Tukur and Olaronke Alo, said after a thorough fact-checking, it came up with the verdict that the allegation by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 presidential election that President Tinubu forged his certificate from the Chicago State University, had no evidence to back it up.

The release of the president’s academic documents by the CSU on the orders of a US District Court was a culmination of a motion filed in August by Atiku, who is contesting the victory of President Tinubu in the disputed February 25 election.

The released documents have been tagged as fake by opposition party leaders and members, especially Atiku and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, while the Tinubu camp has continued to insist that the certificates are genuine.

Atiku, in particular, has maintained that the documents were doctored, and has accused Tinubu of falsifying the CSU diploma of Bachelor of Science in Business Administration awarded in 1979 that he submitted to INEC.

The released documents also raised questions on conflicting birth date and schools purportedly attended by Tinubu.

In one of the documents, it was stated that Tinubu attended Government College Lagos in 1970, but information available on the school website states that it was only founded in 1974.

According to the documents, Tinubu’s transcript from the CSU has his date of birth as March 29, 1954, while his undergraduate admissions application form has his date of birth as March 29, 1955, which have also given the Atiku legal team grounds to further doubt the authenticity of the documents.

Other grounds of discrepancies which the opposition have held on to are the issues of Tinubu’s Social Security Number and gender.

But the BBC fact-finding team’s report said the Social Security Number in the transcript from Chicago varsity matched what it had in other documents in which Tinubu’s gender was marked as male.

The case is now before Nigeria’s Supreme Court, which will decide whether or not the purported evidence is admissible in the election dispute.

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Metro

Zambian govt rejects ‘light’ sentence of PF chieftain, Kambwili, appeals for two-year term

Published

6 hours ago

December 8, 2023

Akanimoh Etim

The Zambian Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Gilbert Phiri, has rejected what he described as the light prison sentence of five months given to a stalwart of the Patriotic Front (PF), Chishimba Kambwili.

Kambwili, a former Foreign Affairs Minister, was last week convicted by a Kasama Resident Magistrate, Samson Mumba, after he was found guilty of hate speech against the Tonga people of Southern Province, and committed to the Milima Prison in Kasama District.

While delivering the judgement, Mumba said Kambwili was guilty of the offence of expressing hatred and ridicule for persons because of tribe and place of origin.

The former Minister of Information and Publicity was said to have issued anti-Tonga tribal remarks during the 2021 elections when he featured on a live radio programme.

He was later suspended for a month by the Electoral Commission of Zambia ( ECZ) over the said remarks.

But Phiri has rejected the five months jail term and is insisting that the offence should have carried a maximum of two years sentence.

The DPP, which filed an appeal at the Lusaka High Court, raised two grounds in the notice, arguing that Mumba had “erred in law when he sentenced the convict to a term of five months imprisonment with hard labour for the offence of hate speech which carries maximum sentence of two years.”

Phiri also argued that the trial “erred in law when it misapplied the principals of sentencing in relation to the gravity and nature of the offence committed.”

Metro

Tinubu talks tough, vows punishment for anyone culpable in deadly bombing of civilians

Published

8 hours ago

December 8, 2023

Akanimoh Etim

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria has vowed that any individual found culpable in the bombing of Tudun Biri village in Kaduna State, North-West Nigeria, where over 120 civilians were killed last Sunday, will not go unpunished.

Tinubu, who made the vow on Thursday, also assured that all the injured victims would be well taken care of by the government under the Folako Initiative which would commence later this month, while the affected communities would be rebuilt under the new intiative.

Tinubu, who was represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, embarked on a visit alongside a high-powered government delegation to wounded victims at Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital, Kaduna. He explained that the government would do everything possible to ensure that such an unfortunate incident dod not occur again.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu sent us to commensurate with the people of Kaduna over the tragic incident,” Shettima said.

“The calibre of people that are here with me is a testimony on how deeply touched the president was by the incident.

“The President was deeply touched by what happened. We will like to assure the people and government of Kaduna State that the government will take measures to protect and preserve the interest of our nation.

“The victims will be well taken care of under the Fulako Initiative which will commence by this month and this community will be the first to be rebuilt in north west zone.

“All measures will be taken to ensure that future occurrence is averted. Government will get to the root of the issue and anyone found culpable will be punished accordingly,” Shettima added.