On a cool Sunday morning, Nigerians especially users of the social media platforms X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook woke up to meet an uncharacteristic rant from the former Vice President and candidate of the PDP in the 2023 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
The PDP Presidential candidate who is challenging the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the presidential election petition tribunal, in the post wondered how President Bola Ahmed Tinubu could have acquired university education in Chicago State University without presenting certificates to shoe he finished primary and secondary education.
Atiku’s post on twitter (X) read, “I woke up this morning wondering how we got to this cul de sac. In 1999, @officialABAT claimed he attended St. John’s Primary School, Aroloya, Lagos, before proceeding to Children Home School in Ibadan. According to him, his next port of call in his educational journey was Government College Ibadan and, Richard Daley College and Chicago State University in the United States.”
“Curiously, in 2023, Tinubu settled with attending only @ChicagoState. I am scratching my head. How is that possible? Methinks that all well-meaning Nigerians should be as confused as I am with Tinubu’s declaration that he had no primary and secondary education, yet he has a university degree. You may wish to #AskTinubu how he attained this feat so that we can learn from his ingenuity ???? -AA”
Atiku’s post took many by surprise as he had largely refrained from launching a personal attack on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu since the conclusion of the 2023 Presidential election. However, the signs of desperation on the part of Atiku had started manifesting few weeks ago when Atiku through his counsels in the US approached a US District Court of Illinois seeking to lay hands on all academic and personal records of President Bola Tinubu in the custody of the Chicago State University.
Atiku claimed that he needed those documents to prove his case in Nigeria. His case before the presidential election petition tribunal challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu is however at the stage of judgment and therefore no new evidence can be presented to the tribunal at this point.
It is therefore possible that Atiku Abubakar realised that his legal team could not prove his case at the Tribunal and has a very slim chance of victory hence the need to shop for possible new evidence(s) he can convince the Supreme Court to admit during his anticipated appeal of the PEPT judgment at the apex court.
Atiku’s expedition to Chicago obviously has not gone as he anticipated with the Respondent in his Discovery of documents application (based on US Statute 28 § 1782), Chicago State University giving no indication of willingness to simply surrender all the bizzare requests from Atiku Abubakar. Chicago State University now confirmed under oath that President Bola Tinubu graduated from the University in 1979 with Honours.
In trying to gain access to personal information of President Tinubu for the purpose of fishing for mistakes or any inconsistent information, Atiku only succeeded in getting the Chicago State University to now confirm under oath, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s academic affiliation with the institution and the need to seek his consent if at all the university were to give Atiku access to Tinubu’s records.
Chicago State University even went as far as making it categorically clear that even if their former student, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did indeed give his consent for Atiku to gain access to his personal information or that despite a possible refusal of consent from President Tinubu, the court goes ahead to grant Atiku’s requests, the University will file its own objections on some grounds it listed.
The memo was clear enough for Atiku to see by this unequivocal response from the CSU team – his Chicago expedition was fruitless. So, even while proceedings continued at the US District Court of Illinois, Atiku knew he would not get hold of all the information he was seeking.
What this reality means is that Atiku Abubakar has lost any little window there possibly was of him getting the Supreme Court to disqualify President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This triggered the Atiku Sunday morning meltdown!