Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu has given the go-ahead to a federal judge in the United States to give his university certificate to his political opponent Atiku Abubakar.
Tinubu reportedly pleaded with Judge Nancy Maldonado to block all other details, especially the gender, and admission records, among others, of the person who owns the certificate from being disclosed.
Tinubu’s prayers is coming as part of the ongoing legal battle unfolding at the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago.
Atiku Abubakar on a judicial quest to establish that Mr Tinubu was not eligible to be Nigerian president despite his election in February 2023 had filed the case in the US court.
Tinubu won the election by 36 per cent of the vote, with Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, who was his running mate in the 2019 election, falling out, subsequently dividing their potential votes into at least two parts, paving the way for Mr Tinubu’s victory with the slimmest margin in Nigerian presidential election history.
Tinubu may have agreed that his certificate could be released but this is coming after he narrowly escaped full disclosure on September 21 by pleading severe harm to his life in order to obtain a stay of a magistrate judge’s order on September 19.
“There is harm in allowing discovery on issues and documents outside the diploma,” Mr Tinubu’s lawyers said in their full briefing to the court seeking a review of Judge Jeffrey Gilbert’s order by Ms Maldonado, a district judge.
