By Chiagozie Nwonwu & Fauziyya Tukur & Olaronke AloThere is no evidence that the diploma Nigeria's President Bola Ahmed Tinubu submitted to the country's electoral commission was forged, the BBC's Global Disinformation Team has found.
Mr Tinubu's lawyers opposed the discovery application, citing privacy concerns, but the US court decided it should proceed.A copy of the diploma CSU gave to Mr Tinubu in 1979 In response to request two, CSU stated that it could not find the diploma they issued to Mr Tinubu in 1979, because they do not keep copies of diplomas already collected by students.
The original one, from 1979, which he has said in the past was lost when he went into exile in the 1990sAdditionally, CSU holds another replacement diploma for Mr Tinubu that they say is probably from the early 2000s that he never collected It turns out that the discrepancy in the appearance of the diploma is down to it having been re-issued in the 1990s.
The copy he gave to the election commission had part of the university logo missing, which Mr Westberg said in his deposition was possibly "cut off" when it was photocopied. But the BBC found that while this was not reflected in the other diplomas released by CSU, it does appears in Mr Tinubu's diploma issued in the early 2000s, which was authenticated by Mr Westberg during his deposition.
The BBC contacted CSU with questions about its diplomas and it referred us to a statement that read in part: "We are confident and always have been in the veracity and integrity of our records regarding Tinubu's attendance and completion of graduation requirements". According to him, the Social Security Number in the transcript from Southwest College matches what it has in other documents in which the student's gender is clearly marked as male.