President Bola Tinubu through his counsel has prayed the Federal Judge in the United States to only release his university certificate to Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) in the February 25 election.
He, however, pleaded with the court to conceal his gender and other school records from his political rival, Atiku.
Arguing further, he said releasing all his academic records, including his gender would be costly to him.
“There is harm in allowing discovery on issues and documents outside the diploma,” Tinubu had pleaded while seeking a review of Judge Jeffrey Gilbert’s order by Ms Maldonado, a district judge.
The judge, while adjurning his ruling to Monday, called both parties to make their presentation before him.
Following many years of the mystery surrounding his state of origin, gender, age, academic records among other biodata, Atiku had approached the court to compel the Chicago State University (CSU), to release complete information of the president to unravel his true identity.
One of the controversial documents showed the person Bola Tinubu as a ‘female’ while others contained conflicting information and discrepancies that the president has failed to explain.
Atiku said, causing the CSU to release all documents linked to the president, will put to rest the controversy as well as aiding his case in Court regarding the outcome of the presidential election.
But after vehemently opposing the release of his documents a week ago, the president has at the hearing today (Monday) pleaded that the court can cause only partial release of the documents, which is his certificate while blocking the CSU from releasing others.
Tinubu argued that, “The Magistrate Judge clearly erred in granting the application for discovery and concluding that Chicago State University must respond to the document and deposition subpoenas.
“Even if a narrow subset of information can be considered ‘for use’ in the foreign proceeding, that is limited to the diploma submitted to INEC.
“Fishing expeditions into other documents and more document productions must be precluded,” Tinubu further argued.
In giving his order, the court ordered the university to provide the 1979 diploma it issued but with the owner’s particulars redacted.
It also ruled that the certificate it issued to Tinubu in 1979, a certificate issued in 1979 that carries “the same font, seal, signatures and wording” as that issued to Tinubu, and a deposition of officials to certify that the records have been released among other rulings to certify the applicant’s request.
