Caleb Westberg, the registrar of Chicago State University said the school was bombarded daily with many enquiries about its former student, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Giving the oral deposition ordered by Judge Maldonado to support the documents on President Bola Tinubu given to Atiku Abubakar, Westberg said the school receives between five and 30 enquiries daily about Tinubu.
However, he said at no time did the school notify Tinubu about the flood of enquiries, ostensibly from Nigeria.
“We believe Bola Tinubu who attended CSU is the same person who is the president of Nigeria today”, Westberg said during the deposition done on Tuesday in the office of Atiku’s lawyer, Angela Liu, at West Wacker Drive in Chicago.
Five other lawyers from the firm Dechert LLP joined in the deposition. President Tinubu was represented by Victor P.Henderson and Oluwole Afolabi, who joined the session by zoom from New York.
Michael Hayes appeared for Chicago State University.
Pressed further by the battery of lawyers representing Atiku on why he believes the person who is the president of Nigeria is the same person who attended CSU, Westberg said Bola Tinubu is an unusual name in the US.
He matched the Records in the file against the information provided by the student or on behalf of the student.
On the controversy over whether the student the school admitted in 1977 ffrom South West College was a man on woman, Westberg said Tinubu applied to the university as a male and a letter of admission was issued to a male.
On the certificates tendered in the documents given to Atiku, the registrar restated that the university only has Diplomas that students didn’t pick up in its possession.
“The university does not typically keep Diplomas.I have the Diploma that was made available to Mr. Enahoro-Ebah in our possession because Mr. Tinubu did not pick it up.
“I do not have the Diploma that was submitted to INEC in our possession because he had picked it up.’
“Why would Mr. Tinubu request a Diploma and not pick it up or ask that it be sent to him?”, one of Atiku’s lawyers asked.
Westberg replied: “You would have to ask him, that is Bola Tinubu”.
Here are other things Westberg deposed to: “I’m not aware of any instance where CSU had been requested to certify a document.Mr. Wole Afolabi who was acting for President Tinubu insisted that the documents must be certified. Mr. Wole Afolabi is President Tinubu’s lawyer. Mr. Afolabi and Mr. Orr communicated by email.
“I don’t recall seeing the emails. I don’t know if Jason Carter approved of the certification. Apart from Jason Carter I do not know anyone else who was involved in the process.
“I went into Mr. Tinubu’s student’s file and produced the documents to Mr. Orr. I didn’t know that the documents would be certified. I don’t get involved in legal matters.
“Mr. Tinubu requested that the documents be released to Mr. Afolabi for ‘legal proceedings’ The signature on the consent form is similar to the signature we have on record for Mr. Tinubu.
“All of the certified documents came from CSU’s files. Nothing was handed over to us by Mr. Afolabi except for the FERPA form. CSU had never certified documents for anyone before. It must have been made because there was more of a Nigerian thing.
“The documents were released in pursuance of a FERPA request. I believe Mr. Afolabi requested that the documents be certified. I’m not aware if the stamp affixed by Mr. Orr to the documents was an official document. It is not part of CSU practice.
“Mr. Orr later departed from CSU after these documents were certified.I don’t know if his departure was connected to the certification of the documents; but I don’t think it was.