Atiku questions Tinubu’s Chicago classmate claim, demands transparency
By Jeffrey Agbo
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on President Bola Tinubu to clear the air over his recent assertion that he once shared a classroom with a Belarusian national named Alex Zingman at Chicago State University (CSU).
The request comes in the wake of Tinubu’s remarks on Monday during the launch of the Renewed Hope Mechanisation Programme in Abuja, where he claimed that Zingman was his classmate at CSU.
Atiku’s Media Office, in a statement issued Tuesday, challenged the credibility of the claim, noting inconsistencies between Tinubu’s statement and publicly available information about Zingman — a businessman with a history of controversy.
The former Vice President voiced concern over Tinubu’s alleged association with Zingman, citing the businessman’s widely reported links to arms trafficking and financial misconduct in African countries such as Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“A basic review of publicly available information immediately calls the President’s claim into question. Mr. Alex Zingman, a Belarusian businessman whose name features prominently in controversial dealings across Africa, including allegations of arms trafficking and financial improprieties in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo — is listed in various reports as being born in 1966,” the statement said.
“By the year 1979, when President Tinubu claims to have graduated from CSU, Mr. Zingman would have been only 13 years old.
“Are we now to believe that the Guinness Book of Records missed the story of a 13-year-old Belarusian prodigy graduating from an American university alongside Bola Ahmed Tinubu?
“Even more troubling is the President’s casual association with a man whose international reputation is mired in scandal.
“This leads us to ask, with the solemn weight of patriotism and the urgency of truth: Mr. President, Nigerians deserve to know why a man born in 1966 is being paraded as your classmate who graduated in 1979.
“Were you taught in the same classroom or different decades?
“Mr. President, Nigerians deserve to know if the Alex Zingman of global infamy — the arms-linked tycoon — shares the same seat in your memories or only in a script of fiction.”
Atiku further argued that Tinubu’s academic history has remained shrouded in ambiguity, noting that attempts to clarify it have only resulted in deeper confusion.
He said, “Mr. President, Nigerians deserve to know why, since you claim to have presented a certificate from Government College, Lagos to gain entry into Richard Daley College in 1973, no classmate from that institution has ever spoken of sharing a desk with you.
“Mr. President, Nigerians deserve to know how a school founded in 1972 could issue you a certificate dated 1970—unless you were a lone prophet of a school yet unborn.
“Mr. President, Nigerians deserve to know why you have not proudly unveiled a single verifiable classmate from your supposed years in Government College, Lagos or Government College, Ibadan or Chicago State University, the way other leaders do with ease and pride.
“Mr. President, your oath of office binds you not just to protect our nation but to honour its truth.
“The Presidency is not a sanctuary for secrets — it is a platform for integrity.
“And as such, Nigerians await not tales of Alexes from distant lands but proof, clarity, and the simple dignity of facts.”
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