Promise Adiele
Regarding Tinubu’s certificate saga, “In love with Nancy” echoes the sentiments of many Nigerians suddenly in love with the name Nancy. It is not because the name has acquired far-flung neoteric characteristics in this part of the world. It is not also because many Nigerian ladies by that name have suddenly attained epiphany in otherwise smouldering socio-economic conditions in their native Nigeria. Indeed, it is not certainly because any lady named Nancy has delivered the Nigerian populace from the malevolent, obnoxious, implacable fury of fiendish invaders from Hades. It is more than that. Ladies who bear the name Nancy in Nigeria these days walk with a swagger reminiscent of the duck in its delectable, rhythmical, swinging and swaying physique.
My use of the word ‘love’ here does not accommodate emotional misadventure by those lost in the constricting hold of lust through unstable, amorous by-ways of the mind. When I use ‘love’ here, I mean genuine appreciation devoid of reciprocity. Of course, there are millions of ladies in the world by the name of Nancy but there is one, like the Shakespearean Northern Star, that retains its place. Who is she?
Her full name is Nancy Lee Maldonado, the beautiful, bespectacled American lawyer from Chicago, a judge who oversees the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, USA. Full of confidence, gait, and intelligence with a demeanour that belies her commitment to upholding justice, she is the direct opposite of most judges in Africa whose sullied sense of justice and equity bears testimony to their lucre-infested, dishonourable professional disposition. These set of people have crippled their country’s judicial system, mutilating the constitution beyond recognition and like the prodigal persona in Okigbo’s poem ‘Idoto’, now stand naked before the fetid presence of mammon, the irreverent god of materialism..
Given the presence of such persons in Nigeria, our country has become a butt of jokes and an item of caricature around the world. But Nancy is different. Little unknown before now, she has become a cult heroine in the world and especially among Nigerians of equitable conscience united under an umbrella against fraud and criminality in the country’s power corridors. Posterity will surely judge her fairly whenever the history of Nigeria is told in the future. How did Nancy Lee Maldonado achieve celebrity status around the world especially in Nigeria?
When the late legal luminary Chief Gani Fawehinmi alerted Nigerians that Bola Tinubu paraded spurious academic credentials, many people thought that he was playing to the gallery. Tinubu claims in an affidavit that he graduated from the University of Chicago and then Chicago State University. It is not a mistake. It is an affidavit, stamped and confirmed as a legal document. According to the affidavit sworn by Tinubu, “I attended University of Chicago from 1972-1976 and Chicago State University from 1977-79”. The affidavit further unambiguously states that “I obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration and qualified as a Certified Public Accountant”. Gani cried foul. Given the country’s inevitable immersion in the depths of judicial uncertainties, circumscribed by inadequate financial muscle to pursue the matter to its logical conclusion, Gani, the human rights activist, could not go far in uncovering what he termed the Tinubu grand deception and misrepresentation.
The University of Chicago denied having records of any Tinubu attending their university. Realizing that he goofed, Tinubu immediately expunged the University of Chicago from the narrative electing to stick with Chicago State University.
In 2023, Nancy Lee Maldonado was to experience something unusual in her court and was irked, angered, and curious in equal measure. Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate in the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria had gone to court in the US, demanding that Tinubu’s academic credentials be revealed. Atiku was following a lead by an independent journalist David Hundeyin, who equally enjoys cult followership in Nigeria, that Tinubu’s academic credentials were false. Stern faced, free from compromise, professionally distinguished, Nancy Lee Maldonado ordered Chicago State University to immediately release Tinubu’s academic records to Atiku Abubakar and warned Tinubu and her lawyers never to step into her court again. That decision by Nancy has earned her a place in Nigeria’s political folklore. At the Chicago Court, Tinubu’s lawyers pleaded that releasing their client’s academic records would inflict ‘irreparable damage” on him. That submission reverberated across Nigeria, pointing to the inherent possible underhand machination in Tinubu’s academic credentials. Nigerians were bewildered because Tinubu had continually regaled his fellow citizens how he made a first-class in Accounting at CSU. As a lecturer, I understand the importance and significance of making a first-class. A first-class graduate is a special breed and would always and readily flaunt the feat for the whole world to see. But Tinubu, the first-class scholar, desperately wanted his first-class degree subsumed in the dark recesses of secrecy, unnoticed, and uncelebrated. Quite ironic.
Since the deposition and revelation of Tinubu’s academic records, Nigeria has been on the bend with multilayered interpretations of the facts and fiction in the matter. Chicago State University has since acquired a disreputation across the world for what seems like complicity in a double standard. Many interpretations of the Tinubu academic credentials have gravitated from outright idiocy, foolishness, illiteracy, caricature, and wilful distortion of facts to derelict displays of sterile intellectualism. I have always argued that if the devil responsible for all the atrocities in the world arrives in Nigeria with the right connections, he will immediately attract disciples who would be willing to rechristen him Lucifer, son of the morning, insisting that his former name was a case of clerical error. Devout Christians will join the bandwagon at the risk of apostasy. That is what Nigeria has become. Tinubu’s academic credentials is a bundle of prefigured, misleading document. His transcript from South West College indicates that it belonged to a lady. But spin doctors have explained it away as a clerical error. We agree. Tinubu claimed that he attended Government College Lagos and passed out in 1970, four years before the school was established. Holy Moses! Miracles are indeed real. What Tinubu cannot do does not exist.
The clerical error advocates have been ominously quiet over the 1970 graduation from a school that was established in 1974. Earlier, he claimed to have attended Government College Ibadan which was a blatant lie or perhaps that was a clerical error too. Documents from Chicago State University clearly indicate that Tinubu did not graduate from there although he may have attended the school. In 1979, CSU wrote to Tinubu informing him that he could not graduate because he had yet to pass outstanding courses like – MATH 101 and 104, and Eng 222. This information is explained in exhibit CSU 0026 which contains detailed conditions for graduation. But he graduated and presented a certificate which CSU has denied to have issued, therefore it was forged. In the worst display of jejune, psychotic effusions, some people have argued that he got the forged certificate from third party vendors as allowed by the university. Some people have even descended so low to argue that anybody can acquire certificates with any self-pleasing design different from what the institution permits. Nothing could be more puerile. I have also read and listened to harebrained, benumbing explanations of the meaning of forgery. Some Nigerians are indeed from another planet.
Under our noses, forgery has acquired another meaning only known to lickspittles and grovelling victims of obsequious palsy. Tinubu forged his CSU certificate. CSU has established it. Mortar and pestle have confirmed it. Forgery is an immoral indulgence before now. But because Tinubu has committed it, it has become a virtue which we must all encourage our children to embrace forthwith. But I know the Yoruba ethnic group where Tinubu comes from value the Omoluabi ethos very much. It is that guiding principle of morality in Yoruba value canvas attributed only to the stellar and sparkling individual among men. Forgery is not an Omoluabi characteristics. The Yoruba deeply frowns at it because it detracts and diminishes the moral identity of an Omoluabi. Indeed, real Omoluabi in Yorubaland will be weeping in their hearts over this case of serial criminality. Pa Awolowo of blessed memory will be turning in his grave right now.
Self-styled devil advocates have argued that Tinubu is not the first person to forge his credentials. His multiple dates of birth do not matter. After all, Atiku Abubakar is also enmeshed in corruption and cannot travel to the US. These advocates from the pit of purgatory have also argued that the Nigerian Supreme Court will not admit fresh evidence at this stage. Therefore, Atiku has wasted his time and money in the US. I flinch in disgust at what Nigeria has become. Immorality has subliminally crept into our social armoury as a virtue. People you would otherwise ascribe a level of decency and probity have swallowed the forbidden fruit and daily make efforts to vomit these obscenities in public spaces. These people are in two categories – those who see this as an opportunity to ingratiate themselves to the presidency and those already seated at the table, feeding with ten fingers. I therefore understand but fail to excuse the squeamishness which these devil advocates employ in the defence of amoral behaviour. Something indeed has happened to Nigeria. Responsible people, parents with children are everywhere defending forgery because they stand to derive some pecuniary, patronizing benefits from dancing naked shamelessly in public.
The matter is not about the Supreme Court. Those who think that this matter will end at the Supreme Court suffer from some kind of cognitive epilepsy. No, this matter is beyond the Supreme Court. Any conscientious follower of politics in Nigeria and the behaviour of the judiciary in recent times will never nurse any hope of the judiciary acting as Nancy Lee Maldonado in the Tinubugate.
Today, Ike Ekweremadu, currently serving his terms in UK prison would have been a hero in Nigeria, a senator set free by the Nigerian judiciary. But in the United Kingdom, it is a different ball game. There must be something arcane about the Nigerian judiciary which makes it operate at cross-purposes with other judicial systems in the world. The current Tinubugate goes beyond the Supreme Court but berths at the seashore of posterity where a vicious circle in our body politic will be entrenched. It extends to Nigeria’s reputation in the world as a country where a forger superintends in the affairs of millions of people. The matter is at the heart of our moral values. It affects our claims to different religions and the psychological effect on our children and students. Tinubu and his army of swirlers may win at the supreme court in the short term but Nigeria will lose in the long run among the comity of nations. All hail Nancy Lee Maldonado. All hail Gani Fawehinmi. All hail David Hundeyin. All hail all Nigerians of equitable conscience.
Promise Adiele PhD
Mountain Top University
Twitter: @drpee4
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