The BBC has come under fire from opposition parties for their story that absolved President Bola Tinubu of the charge of certificate fraud.
The People Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) have accused the British media organization of propaganda in support of the ruling government.
On Wednesday, the BBC’s Global Disinformation Team published a fact-checking report claiming that there was no evidence to support the claim that Tinubu forged his Chicago State University (CSU) certificate, which he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to run in the February presidential election.
The claim, according to the report, was based on a comparison of the diploma provided to INEC and the diplomas awarded by CSU in 1979, when Mr Tinubu graduated.
The report went on to say that Tinubu’s diploma was similar to those provided by CSU in the 1990s when he claimed to have lost the original when he went into exile.
“Mr Westberg said the template of CSU’s diploma has changed several times over the years. He said any request for a new diploma would resemble the current template at that time, no matter when the student graduated,” the report explained.
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“As such, if Mr Tinubu had reordered his diploma in the late 1990s, what he would have been given would look like what was obtainable then.’’
Following the BBC report clearing Tinubu of any wrongdoing, Atiku’s media adviser Phrank Shaibu called the story a “hatchet job” and part of President Tinubu’s propaganda campaign.
“If the BBC had invested in proper investigative journalism, it would have been the one uncovering some of Tinubu’s scandals instead of relying on Atiku for information on Tinubu’s certificates,” he said.
Likewise, the National Legal Adviser of the Labour Party, Kehinde Edun, maintains even with the BBC findings that the CSU certificate President Tinubu presented to INEC was not genuine.
According to Edun, the report did not move them, and President Tinubu should accept responsibility for his mistake and be transparent about his credentials.
“They (BBC) are entitled to their opinion. As far as we are concerned, this issue has become so messy and too dirty. In fact, in this circumstance, we even sympathise with Tinubu because he put himself in too many problems by not coming out clean about so many things,” he said.
“If you look at what Peter Obi said today, he was actually showing some form of empathy by saying that this man (Tinubu) should just clean up his mess for the sake of the country.”
