Atiku, Obi Protest as BBC Fact-checkers Clear Tinubu Over Certificate Forgery Case

The camps of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP standard bearer, Atiku Abubakar and the  Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has  protested the BBC report that there is no evidence to back the diploma forgery allegation against  President Bola Tinubu.

BBC’s Global Disinformation Team had in a fact-checking report published on Wednesday said there was no evidence that President Tinubu forged the Chicago State University certificate he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to contest the February presidential election.

The release of the president’s academic documents is the culmination of a judicial case filed in August by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is seeking to overturn Tinubu’s electoral victory at the Supreme Court.

In response to the new development, Atiku’s Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, in a statement, described the report as a hatchet job.

He claimed that the report “is part of President Tinubu administration’s propaganda programme.”

Shaibu said, sometime last week when the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC issued a final warning to Arise News TV, the PDP had pointed out that the Tinubu administration was on the verge of launching a full-blown propaganda and also intimidating ‘uncooperative’ media houses into discrediting and downplaying the CSU scandal.

Shaibu lampooned the BBC for allegedly attempting to “bamboozle Nigerians with a jaundiced report when the details are clear for everyone to see.”

Atiku’s aide alleged that the BBC investigation was carried out with a predetermined goal- to clear President Tinubu.

Shaibu called on the BBC and other fact-checkers to be more circumspect, adding that their job was too sensitive to entertain errors.

Also speaking, the PDP Deputy National Youth Leader, Timothy Osadolor, insisted that Tinubu’s CSU certificate presented to the INEC was not genuine.

Similarly, the leadership of the Labour Party said they were not moved by the report of the British media outfit, which it hinted was damage control to change the certificate saga narrative.

The National Legal Adviser of the party, Kehinde Edun, said regardless of what anyone may say, the president must take responsibility “for the confusion he is putting the country through.”

But responding to both parties, the APC Director of Publicity, Bala Ibrahim, slammed the PDP  standard bearer, Atiku, over the certificate controversy.

He applauded the BBC, describing its investigation as “factual and a reflection of reality.”

Ibrahim also dismissed insinuations that the foreign media might have been compromised to give the president a clean bill