Festus Keyamo, minister of aviation and aerospace development, has said the President’s Certificate remains valid until the vendor who issued it denies doing such.
This is coming after a long train controversies surrounding the validity of President Tinubu’s certificate from Chicago State University.
In a deposition, Caleb Westberg, registrar of CSU, said vendors may have issued the certificates and that the one the president obtained in 1997 matches the institution’s format of 1990s.
The university released Tinubu’s academic records after former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar filed a case in the US, requesting the documents.
Abubakar, who was the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 elections, is seeking to disqualify Tinubu as president on the grounds that he forged his academic certificate.
The former vice-president has since filed a motion seeking to introduce the president’s records as new evidence following his appeal of the presidential election petitions tribunal verdict that affirmed Tinubu’s victory in February.
However, in a post via his official X account, Festus Kenyamo has urged Atiku to provide the vendor who issued the certificate to Tinubu to confirm its validity.
In his words:
“And it is the duty of the accuser to fish out the said vendor and get that evidence. It is not the other way round. He who alleges must prove.
“This is the simple principle I laid down in 2019 during our defence of President Buhari that has been so mischievously celebrated as if they have hit the bull’s eye.”