By Eric Elezuo

The last is yet to be heard concerning the certificate forgery and identity saga involving Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu as a prominent United States of America citizen, who is also the Head of United States Intelligence at the Global Information System (GIS) and Director of the ISSA Center for the Study of Monarchy and Traditional Governance, Mr. Gregory Copley, has spoken candidly of the scandal.

The intelligence officer, who is also the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Defence and Foreign Affairs publications, warned the Supreme Court against confirming Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the authentic winner of the February 25, 2023, presidential election, when it begins sitting following an appeal brought by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

Copley sounded the apocalyptic warning when he was hosted by CBS presenter, John Batchelor, during a live programme, Eye on the World.

He noted that there will be dire consequences if the Supreme Court toes the line of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, and affirms Tinubu’s presidency, while confirming that several agencies in the United States are compiling and will soon release information on the life and times of Tinubu in the country which is believed to be damaging to the record of the president. He picked holes in Tinubu’s documents as released by the Chicago State University, affirming that the papers were actually, and with the military saying it would not return to power, the citizens may likely take it upon themselves to unleash a certain level of unrest if the Supreme Court fails ‘to do the right thing’.

A transcript of the the conversation between Batchelor and Copley is presented in full below:

“I’m John Batchelor with my good colleague Gregory Copley, Defense And Foreign Affairs, the editor and publisher. He’s traveling, he’s in London. We come now to the Nigerian election of 2023 concluded with the victory going to the man representing the establishment, Bola Tinubu. However, there is new information that raises questions, a great deal not only about Tinubu but about the legitimacy, the trustworthiness, the credibility, the stability of the whole country because of questions raised at the election and misrepresentations.

Gregory, What do we know about Tinubu? What do we know about his presentation to the people of Nigeria?

Well, firstly, we have to understand that Nigeria is this great bell wealth for Africa. It’s the largest population and the largest economy in Africa. It has moved very deliberately past an era of coups which were intended to save democracy in many years past and the military have not intervened. This time, they have indicated they don’t want to intervene. But the reality is that the Independent National Electoral Commission really clearly showed that it was bought off by the outgoing administration in order to put their candidate, Bola Tinubu, in the front seat of the election. He won about a third of the votes 36 percent of the votes. He won a third of the states in Nigeria, but he failed to win something which was stipulated in the constitution. He had to win not only a given number of states but also the Federal Capital Territory around Abuja. He failed to win Abuja. Now the logical outcome for the Election Commission would have been to call for a second round of voting between the top two candidates Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu that they didn’t do. They just awarded the election to Tinubu. Now that’s well and good and it was appealed to the Elections Court which again ruled in favor of Tinubu. Even though there was a prima facie case that it violated the constitution.

There were always questions about the bribing and corruption within the courts and within INEC, the Election Commission. But then we’ve now started to see greater attention being paid to the fact that Bola Tinubu lied and committed forgery and fraud on his election application in sworn documents. So, this included a lot about his educational qualifications which he clearly lied about and it included failure to disclose his criminal prosecutions in the United States and as a result, what we’ve seen belatedly as a results of a US attempt under the Freedom of Information Act to have documents in the federal government of the United States released into the public domain.

Now in September, the FBI said it would start releasing 500 documents or 500 pages a month of its documents on Tinubu out of 2500 total pages of material that they have on him. The CIA, the State Department, the IRS, the Drug Enforcement Agency have also got a mass of data about Bola Tinubu’s activities in the United States, and they too are preparing to release all this information. And what it’s starting to show is that Bola Tinubu has used many aliases along his career, including to gain an education or to gain claims of education. And he basically put pressure on Chicago State University not to release the transcriptions or anything to do with him because they show that he used different names that he used several different Social Security numbers in the United States, some of which were clearly borrowed or fraudulent. He clearly forged in the number of documents; he borrowed another person’s identity to file studies which were required educationally. So he’s done a number of things. But he particularly was prosecuted in Chicago in the 1990’s for narcotics trafficking, and he basically pleaded no-contest to that and escaped with a forfeiture of 460 thousand dollars rather than go to prison.

So, there’s a lot which is coming out about him. So the appeal against the election outcome after being rejected by the Election court is now getting ready to go to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. That’s going to be accompanied by all of this other information about Tinubu’s forgeries. If Bola Tinubu is in fact his name, but he’s lied on about literally every aspect of his life, so it gets to be a very interesting situation. It’s to the point now where if the Supreme Court does not overturn this election, then there will be serious consequences. I’ve heard it and that’s one of the reasons I’m in London speaking to a lot of my African correspondents who have come up to meet me is that there will be consequences such as; a move to impeach President Tinubu starting either in the Senate or in the House of Representatives in Nigeria. But certainly there’s cooperation among House and Senate people, the politicians there to start as a not only impeachment of the President to overturn the election but also to start censoring or impeaching the Supreme Court if it fails to do its duty and also of course to start prosecuting officials within INEC, the Independent National Electoral Commission as well. So this starts to get very, very ugly.

The military has basically said; Well, we don’t want to be back in government ever again. It’s just too damaging to the country to restart the clock every time but what you will see as an increase in public unrest. You’ll see the government being unable to coordinate any compromises with its neighbours in ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States in the fight against the jihadist movements such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa and the likes. So, this is going to get really ugly really quickly and will further impact the Nigerian economy. Unless the Supreme Court does its duty now.

The Supreme Court is actually being assaulted by the Tinubu State House with bribery offers and all manner of coercive measures. So, the seven justices who we now know have been chosen for this Supreme Court case really are up against a massive dilemma. Whether they cave to corruption which they may, or whether they bring the country into real chaos.

Has either the UK government or the US government commented?

No, they have not commented. But the fact that the US government has now caved completely and is releasing documents over five major agencies starting with the FBI is a statement in itself.

Gregory Copley, editor and publisher of Defense And Foreign Affairs. He’s traveling. He’s in London. The unfinished and deeply deeply troubled election of 2023 in Nigeria, influencing all of Africa. Everybody watches very carefully what happens in Nigeria. This is CBS Eye on the World. I’m John Batchelor.”

It is on record that Tinubu has been frantic efforts prior, during and after the release of his academic records to Atiku. He appealed to CSU not to release the records, claiming it will cause ‘irreparable damage’ to his person. When the appeal was turned, the Nigerian president reportedly consulted about three Appeal courts in the USA to upturn the mandate granted CSU to release the records.

Consequently, after the records were released, sources have told The Boss that Tinubu resorted media war to ‘defend the indefensible’. This, he is doing with the expansion of media aides to join in feeding the public narratives different from what  CSU presented to the public. He is probably assembled the largest media and information team ever in the history of Nigeria.

According to a statement by presidential spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, during the week, Tinubu appointed addition five media aides including Senior Special Assistant to the President National Values & Social Justice, Fela Durotoye; Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Engagement, Fredrick Nwabufo; and Senior Special Assistant to the President, Strategic Communications, Linda Nwabuwa Akhigbe.

Others are Special Assistant to the President, Public Affairs, Aliyu Audu, and Personal Assistant to the President, Special Duties, Francis Adah Abah. Linda Nwabuwa Akhigbe was later seconded to serve as the Communications Adviser to the President of the ECOWAS Commission.

Also during the week, three Nigerian journalists, Chiagozie Nwonwu, Fauziyya Tukur and Olaronke Alo, working with The Disinformation Team of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), wrote an article, exonerated Tinubu from the forgery allegations. They claim it was based on a thoroughly conducted reseach, using basic yardsticks from the released documents fron CSU.

On Friday, Tinubu added to the list with the appointment of Bayo Onanuga as the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy. The president is proving that he was ready for media war to attempt a remedy at his battered image.

However, a counter report by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), showed that the British media outlet erred in its report.

According to FIJ, it fact-checked Tinubu’s academic profile after CSU released his academic records to Atiku Abubakar.

From the documents made available by CSU, FIJ found that the replacement certificate Tinubu presented to the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) did not emanate from the university. FIJ came to this conclusion after it compared replacement certificates issued in the 1990s with the one Tinubu submitted to INEC ahead of the 2023 presidential election.

The original one, from 1979, which he has said in the past, was lost when he went into exile in the 1990s.

The second one, that he submitted to INEC – supposedly a replacement diploma from CSU (it is similar to diplomas issued by CSU in the 1990s).

Additionally, CSU holds another replacement diploma for Mr Tinubu that they say is probably from the early 2000s that he never collected. Given the clarification in the above three points, FIJ asserted that it is clear that Tinubu only obtained a replacement certificate from the CSU in the 1990s. It adds that the BBC confirmed this: “It turns out that the discrepancy in the appearance of the diploma is down to it having been re-issued in the 1990s”.

However, from the samples provided by CSU in its deposition, certificates issued in the 1990s did not include the expression ‘with honors’. The BBC also clearly states in its report that “any request for a new diploma would resemble the current template at that time, no matter when the student graduated”. This renders BBC’s verification of Tinubu’s 1990s certificate with one issued in the 2000s illogical.

Also, the BBC had claimed that CSU’s policy is to issue replacement certificates that match the current template, regardless of when the student graduated. However, this claim is contradicted by the fact that Tinubu’s certificate includes a signature of the current President of CSU, who took office in 2018, which the fact-checking organisation says is impossible.

The organisation has it that until the CSU provides another certificate from the 1990s, which has ‘with honours’, there are only two reasonable explanations for Tinubu’s certificate. One is that it did not emanate from the CSU. Two, whoever created the controversial certificate in Tinubu’s possession copied the template of the 2000s without paying attention to timeframe variations. This, it said, is clear in one of the signatures on Tinubu’s certificate.

The signature on the right is that of Zaldwaynaka “Z”, the current President of CSU, who took office in 2018. A president who took office in 2018 could not have signed a certificate supposedly released in the 1990s.

More importantly, Westberg admitted in his deposition that the certificate Tinubu submitted to INEC was not from CSU, which FIJ conclusively said added to render the report by BBC flawed.

It could be recalled that the Chicago State University (CSU) recently released academic records of Tinubu which clearly showed that he never graduated from the institution and that his certificate were forged.

ABOUT GREGORY COPLEY 

Gregory R. Copley, a U.S Military General, is a historian, author, and strategic analyst who had worked at the highest levels with various governments around the world, advising on national security, intelligence, and national management issues for almost five decades.

He is the founder and editor of the Global Information System intelligence service used by governments, and the Defense & Foreign Affairs series of publications, including the Defense & Foreign Affairs Handbook, hailed as “indispensable” by President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor, William Clark; and author of thousands of articles, classified papers, speeches, and books on strategy, defense, and aviation. He lives in Washington, D.C.

He is also the author of The New Total War of the 21st Century and the Trigger of the Fear Pandemic.

While all eyes were initially on the judiciary from the onset, it has presently been narrowed to all eyes on the Supreme Court.