Scam buster Hundeyin calls Tinubu’s CSU ‘classmate’, alleges he has an ‘assumed identity’
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Nigerian investigative journalist David Hundeyin, who is based in the United States, has described as “fake” the testimony given by Durojaiye Ogunsanya that he was a classmate of President Bola Tinubu at Chicago State University (CSU).
Ogunsanya, who claims to be a public affairs analyst, disclosed on TVC on Tuesday he was in the same class with Tinubu and they both graduated in 1979.
TV Continental (TVC) is part of Tinubu’s personal empire, which also includes The Nation newspaper.
“We met in school at Chicago State University, where we were both enrolled in the College of Accounting Business and Administrative, majoring in Accounting. We shared the same classes, and we graduated together in 1979,” Ogunsanya said.
There has been controversy about the academic credentials of Tinubu for more than two decades – dating back at least to his tenure as Lagos Governor from 1999 – particularly over his allegedly forged certificate and also his failure to name any former school mate in Nigeria or elsewhere.
Ogunsanya is the first person to publicly disclose he attended any school with Tinubu, and it is curious he did so more than 20 years after the scandal broke, and announced on a television channel owned by Tinubu, which is his mouthpiece.
On Thursday, Morning Show hosts on Arise News – an independent television channel – invited Ogunsanya to appear on the programme for a proper scrutiny of his claims.
The invitation was made by Rufai Useni and supported by his two co-hosts Ayo Mario-Ese, and Reuben Abati.
However, the brouhaha about Tinubu’s academic credentials goes far beyond whether or not he actually attended CSU.
The core part is more on the credentials he used to gain admission to CSU, if it was actually him who attended the school, according to allegation levelled in court by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar.
Tinubu was first sued to a regular court in Nigeria over his certificate before he became Lagos Governor in 1999. Another lawsuit was taken against him about it in 2022.
Atiku made the same allegation in 2023 in his petition at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEC).
And Atiku is currently litigating in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois for a subpoena compelling CSU to provide him directly with Tinubu’s biodata and academic records.
A previous attorney subpoena issued in the US in 2022 led to CSU releasing the same records which were first reported that year by West Africa Weekly (https://westafricaweekly.substack.com/p/has-bola-ahmed-tinubu-committed-perjury), a website owned by Hundeyin.
“Everybody and their dog is now reporting that one ‘Durojaiye Ogunsanya’ appeared on TVC claiming to be Tinubu’s coursemate at @ChicagoState,” Hundeyi posted with skepticism on X (Twitter) on Wednesday in reaction to the man’s claim, according to reporting by This Nigeria.
“A simple refined string search on Google using that search keyword shows very obviously that this is a made-up identity.
“The only time the name ‘Durojaiye Ogunsanya’ appears on the entire internet is in news articles reporting about the same TVC appearance. Someone claiming to be a ‘public affairs analyst’ cannot possibly have a web footprint that is zero.
“This [man] appeared on TVC using an assumed identity to claim that everyone with a functioning pair of eyes knows is not true, and look at ‘journalists’ queuing up to report and amplify this nonsense.
“Meanwhile, none of them has reported that the FBI is preparing to release 2,500 pages of its dossier on Tinubu, or that @ChicagoState yesterday in court disowned the forged certificate that Tinubu submitted to INEC.
“Just another instance of mainstream Nigerian media being daft and incurious while queuing up to parrot an official line, just like how they all reported that @hadisirika attended one ‘Petroleum Helicopters Institute’ in the USA – a place that does not exist.
“If you like yourself and you want a better life for your children, FUND INDEPENDENT MEDIA.”
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Related articles:
Tinubu has 2 CSU certificates and “either ‘A’ or ‘B’ is fake (if not both)”, lawyer tells US court
U.S. Court reserves ruling in Atiku’s case seeking CSU disclosure of Tinubu’s education records
FBI plans release of 2,500 documents pertaining to Tinubu from October
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Atiku alleges Tinubu forged CSU degree certificate
The PEPC in Abuja upheld on September 6 the election of Tinubu as President, as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), despite allegation of certificate forgery against him.
Atiku levelled the allegation at the PEPC where his witness presented documents subpoenaed from CSU.
The allegation comprised identity theft, age falsification, certificate forgery, and perjury. But the PEPC rejected the witness as incompetent and, because of that and other reasons, dismissed Atiku’s petition.
Filings at the PEPC in Abuja and in the US court show Tinubu’s CSU records presented in both courts have the same details.
The allegation is in two parts:
Part one – ‘Bola A. Tinubu’ is a ‘female’
Subpoenaed CSU documents show, among others, that one “Bola A. Tinubu”, a “female”,
- Who was born on 29 March 1954,
- Attended Southwest College in Chicago after attending Government College, Lagos.
- She obtained a diploma from Southwest College with which she was admitted to CSU in 1977, and graduated with a BSc degree in “business administration” in 1979.
- The degree certificate CSU issued to her was dated 27 June 1979.
However, Atiku argued President Bola Tinubu filled in the forms he submitted to the INEC in 1999 and 2022 that, he, a “man”,
- Was born on 29 March 1952.
- Attended Government College, Ibadan (in 1999 INEC forms).
- Declined to state his primary and secondary schools (in 2022 INEC form)
- Attended CSU where he graduated with a BSc degree in “business and administration” in 1979.
- His CSU degree certificate was dated 22 June 1979.
Atiku insisted these and other discrepancies in Tinubu’s records show his degree certificate was allegedly forged by engaging in identity theft to counterfeit and claim the school records of the original “Bola A. Tinubu”, who is a female.
Atiku has asked the US court to expedite the subpoena of Tinubu’s CSU records to clear the inconsistencies in Tinubu’s particulars he needs to buttress his case at the Supreme Court of Nigeria in his appeal against the judgment of the PEPC.
Part two – Tinubu presented two different CSU certificates
Angela Liu, lawyer for Atiku, told the US court last month that Tinubu presented two contradictory CSU certificates signed by different persons and “BOTH certificates may well be fake.”
Liu pointed out the discrepancies in response to a submission by Tinubu’s lawyers, saying one certificate was issued on 22 June 1979 and the other on 27 June 1979 signed by “two different sets of people.”
Tinubu blamed “clerical error” for the discrepancies in his certificate, insisting an unidentified CSU clerk made the error about the date the school stated on his recently re-issued certificate, creating “the appearance of differences”.
However, Liu clarified that one certificate asserts that Tinubu was issued the certificate on 22 June 1979 and another asserts the certificate was issued on 27 June 1979, with the certificates bearing different CSU letter fonts and logos.
Her words: “The document marked ‘A’ is the certificate submitted by Tinubu to INEC [Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission]. This certificate is, in every material respect, exactly the same as the document marked ‘B’ except for the following.
“Document ‘A’ is signed by at least three people whereas ‘B’ is signed by only two people.
“The document marked ‘E’ states that Tinubu was issued a certificate on 22nd June 1979 but then proceeded to forward a copy of a certificate (‘B’) dated 27th June 1979.
“Please note that ‘A’ is actually dated 22nd June 1979, but this document did not emanate from CSU. Only ‘B’ did.
“You cannot have two certificates issued by the same university, to the same person, for the same course of study, but issued on different dates and signed by two different sets of people.
“The documents ‘A’ and ‘B’ both state that Tinubu graduated with a BSc in ‘Business AND Administration’, whereas document ‘E’ (which came from CSU) states that he graduated with a BSc in ‘Business Administration’.”
Liu said the CSU website makes no reference to “business and administration” and only says the College of Business offers a contemporary business program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration or Masters in Business Administration (MBA).
She also argued it was not possible for Elnora D. Daniel to be among those who signed both of Tinubu’s certificates because she was only CSU President between 1998 and 2008.
“She was neither President of the university in 1979 – when the certificate was purportedly issued – nor was she President in 2022, when the replacement certificates were issued.”