Arise TV morning show co-host Rufai Oseni told viewers in November 2022 that Chicago State University denied that President Bola Tinubu attended the school.
Oseni stirred the hornet’s nest when he claimed on Tuesday, November 22, 2022, that Chicago State University was hit with a subpoena, and based on that document, they disclaimed Bola Tinubu’s academic records.
This was three months before the presidential election.
Mr. Oseni then claimed on air that he had sourced that ‘fact’ from The Vanguard newspaper.
Chicago State University, however, deposed to an affidavit on August 23, 2023, upholding Mr. Tinubu’s academic standing as a former student and graduate of the school.
A source at the newspaper said The Vanguard never reported what was credited to it by Mr Oseni, perceived to have a soft spot for Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party.
Obi contested against Tinubu in Nigeria’s presidential election in February.
To date, neither AriseTV nor Mr. Oseni has done a corrigendum correcting this non-factual statement made and passed off as news to the Nigerian public.
Moreover, several Nigerians have published documents they received from Chicago State University affirming that President Tinubu attended and graduated from the university, including Omokri and popular columnist and US-based professor Farooq Kperogi.
Kperogi explained that despite his resentment towards Tinubu, that the Nigerian president who attended the university was never in doubt.
“A friend, who is a professor of English at the university, went to the registrar’s office and confirmed that Tinubu indeed attended and graduated from CSU,” Kperogi wrote in a blog published on his website. along with a copy of a letter from the university.
“His study at CSU—a four-year, state-funded, historically Black university—was shortened because he transferred two years’ worth of college credit from Richard J. Daley College, a community college (equivalent to a diploma-awarding institution in Nigeria) in Chicago, started life as William J. Bogan Junior College, in 1960, got renamed Southwest College in 1970, and got renamed yet again as Richard J. Daley College in 1976.” [The Guardian’s Outlook]
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