Presidency twists facts to confuse public, Atiku alleges

The Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has alleged that the presidency twisted facts to confuse the mind of the public regarding President Bola Tinubu’s Chicago State University academic records.

The PUNCH reports that the CSU released Tinubu’s academic record to Atiku after weeks of legal tussle, and the former vice president on Friday filed the CSU documents as fresh evidence at the Supreme Court.

Atiku and Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, had filed 86 grounds of appeal at the Supreme Court to nullify the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal’s judgment that affirmed Tinubu’s victory.

The former VP in a statement by his Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, on Sunday, alleged that some media aides to the president have come out openly to “push back on the narrative.”

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He alleged further that some media houses have persistently slanted their story to justify a corrupted interpretation of the facts in the disposition.

He insisted that Tinubu falsified a document he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission and swore an affidavit under oath to back it up.

According to him, “On page 26 of the deposition which is publicly available, the Registrar of the Chicago State University, Caleb Westberg, under oath, was asked a simple question that, “CSU has determined that it does not have a true and correct copy of the diploma issued to Bola Tinubu is 1979, correct? To which the Registrar responded, That’s correct.”

“Also, on page 27, a similar question was put to Mr. Westberg: So, CSU, after going through every diploma, was unable to find an authentic copy of any diploma that CSU issued to Tinubu in 1979. Is that correct? The CSU Registrar, in his response, said: We did not find any diploma issued by CSU in 1979 to Mr. Tinubu.”

Atiku’s aide revealed that when asked whether the CSU is aware of or in possession of the diploma that Tinubu submitted to INEC,” Mr. Westberg simply said, “Correct, we are not aware of it.”