Certificate Saga: Tinubu’s Administration Not Distracted – Foreign Minister, Tuggar
By Peregba Jerry
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has played down the controversies surrounding the certificate of President Bola Tinubu.
He said the Tinubu administration does not have time to waste on the certificate issue, which he described as a “trivial matter” and distraction.
Tuggar, speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday, said the President had met with other world leaders despite the controversy and the issue had not been a subject of discussion in all his recent international engagements.
“The foreign leaders that we’ve been engaging and the international organisations clearly are disinterested in wasting time on such.
“We pay no mind to that,” Tuggar said.
He added that it was not surprising that the issue had been a subject of discussion in the Nigeria space, adding that former President Muhammadu Buhari faced a similar thing.
“There is a tendency to always try to distract and detain people on such frivolous issues as opposed to facing the major issues of development. We don’t have time to waste on that.
“Nobody is wasting time about certificate qualification for somebody who has been a governor of a state, served two terms, and has been on the national stage as a politician.
“You remember that (former) President Buhari had to go through the same thing, where people were actually questioning whether he went to secondary school or not. Someone who had classmates, was the captain; and was a head boy,” he said.
According to him, Nigerians should concentrate on development.
Considering “the economic challenges we are facing – we shouldn’t be wasting time about whether some certificate, whether there is a T missing or an I hasn’t been dotted. That shouldn’t be our primary focus at the moment,” he said.
The Chicago State University released the academic records of the President following a request by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
Magistrate Jeffrey Gilbert had on September 19 granted Atiku’s request for the release of Tinubu’s academic records but the President filed a review of the order.
Tinubu’s lawyers insisted that the documents would not be relevant in Atiku’s appeal against Tinubu at the Supreme Court and asked for a review of the ruling.
However, Justice Nancy Maldonado, a federal judge, overruled Tinubu’s objections and ordered the CSU to release the President’s academic records.
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 for “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.”
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