Tinubu begs US court not to release privileged documents

On Monday, President Bola Tinubu begged United States District Judge Nancy Maldonado to order Chicago State University to protect his confidential information, such as his admission records, transcripts, and gender, and to only release his certificate to the legal team of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

Christopher Carmichael, the president’s attorney, submitted the motion and emphasized that Tinubu’s alma school had “already clearly and unequivocally established” the “most critical fact.”

It was previously reported that Tinubu’s academic records would be made available to Atiku’s legal team after the politician obtained an injunction from US court Jeffrey Gilbert.

The records of Tinubu’s application and admittance to CSU, dates of attendance, degrees, honors, and prizes received at the university, among other things, are among the documents that Atiku is requesting through his attorney, Angela Liu.

Last Thursday, as Gilbert’s deadline drew nearer, Tinubu’s attorneys approached Maldonado and argued that Gilbert’s earlier ruling needed to be reviewed by a district judge.

The US district judge ultimately agreed to the request for a review and a postponement of the ruling until Monday.

However, the president’s legal team urged with Maldonado on Monday to withhold Tinubu’s other confidential data and merely provide the certificate.

The motion filed by the lawyer partly read, “The most critical fact has already been clearly and unequivocally established by Chicago State University: Intervenor was awarded the degree as he stated. This point is irrelevant to the applicant because he is not seeking anything more than opposition research on a political opponent.

“The magistrate judge clearly erred in granting the application for discovery and concluding that Chicago State University must respond to the document and deposition subpoenas. That conclusion should be set aside and the application should be denied because the information sought cannot be used and therefore is not ‘for use’ in the foreign proceedings.

“Even if a narrow subset of information can be considered ‘for use’ in the foreign proceeding, that is limited to the diploma submitted to INEC. Fishing expeditions into other documents and more document productions must be precluded.”