Presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has told the Independent National Electoral Commission that unknown persons looted his house and stole his academic certificates while he was on self-exile.
Tinubu was one of the chieftains of the National Democratic Coalition, who fled Nigeria during the military dictatorship of the late General Sani Abacha.
Henchmen of the Abacha military junta had gone after academics, activists and other technocrats opposed to his rule, many of whom were members of the dreaded NADECO. Some of them were eliminated by unknown gunmen while others were hounded into exile.
Tinubu in his sworn affidavit in support of his nomination form for the office of the president of Nigeria in 2023 claimed that he “went on self-exile from October 1994 to October 1999 (and) when I returned and discovered that my property, including all the documents relating to my qualification and my certificates in respect of paragraph 3 above, were looted by unknown persons.”
While the APC presidential flagbearear skipped information about his primary and secondary education in the INEC form, he said he attended University of Chicago between 1972 and 1976, where he obtained B.Sc in Economics.
Tinubu also said he had B.Sc in Business and Administration, as well as certificate in Public Account.
The APC presidential candidate’s latest claims, however, appear to contradict his previous submissions to the electoral body, especially in 1999, when he contested and won the election into the office of the governor of Lagos State.
Tinubu had then claimed that he attended St Paul Children’s Home School, Ibadan, between 1958 and 1964; and had his secondary education at Government College Ibadan (GCI), between 1965 and 1968.
But due to the backlash experienced then, the former governor withheld his primary and secondary schools’ academic records when he contested for a second term in 2003.
Tinubu had claimed that from Ibadan, he proceeded to Richard Daley College, Chicago, from 1969 to 1971.
He concluded that he attended both Chicago State University and the University of Chicago.
But prominent human rights lawyer and activist, late Gani Fawehinmi, had challenged all of Tinubu’s submissions as fraudulent.
Fawehinmi argued the matter up to the Supreme Court, but the apex court dismissed the case on technical grounds.
SEGUN
