Chicago Certificate: Why Young Nigerians Should Refuse the Distraction

Chicago Certificate: Why Young Nigerians Should Refuse the Distraction

Every election season, the same question returns: did President Bola Tinubu really graduate from Chicago State University? As a young Nigerian and the National Youth Leader of TMS, I understand why the matter excites social media.

But I have to ask a different question: what does another round of this debate do for the graduate searching for a job, the student worrying about school fees, or the young trader counting the cost of transport?

On the law, the matter has been tested. The Presidential Election Petition Court dismissed the challenge to Tinubu’s 2023 victory in September 2023, and the Supreme Court concluded the appeals on 26 October 2023. A seven-member panel unanimously dismissed the appeal and refused to admit the Chicago State University deposition as fresh evidence.

The reason was procedural: none of the seven issues Atiku raised on appeal concerned forgery, so the Court said the new evidence did not fit the case before it. Chicago State University has also stated that Mr Tinubu attended and graduated in 1979.

Critics reply that the Court sidestepped the question of authenticity. But a court can only decide what is properly pleaded and argued before it. Election petitions run on strict timelines and rules, and every candidate knows them.

When the highest court in the land rejects a case that was not properly built, the law does not owe the loser a second trial, and each repetition of the allegation is politics, not a legal event.

Let us be fair about what is at stake. A certificate matters to Nigerians because certificates open doors, and for young people the real question is whether those doors are opening. That is why I want the conversation on the issues that decide our futures.

NELFUND has disbursed ₦372.62bn in interest-free student loans as of late September. About 300,000 Nigerians have trained in digital skills through 3MTT, and taxable income up to ₦800,000 a year is now exempt from income tax. Inflation eased to 14.63% in September 2026, and the naira recently reached ₦1,331.77 per dollar, its strongest in two years.

I will not pretend the journey is easy. Food inflation was still 19.59% last month, NELFUND upkeep payments have been delayed for some students, and placement after training is the real test of the digital-skills programme. Young Nigerians feel these pressures, and we should say so plainly. But the right response is to ask what works and what does not, using facts, not to relitigate a settled question.

That is also the opposition’s opportunity. Opposition parties have published manifestos, and I welcome the contest of ideas. Some of their promises deserve hard questions. ADC candidates in the North-West have backed Atiku’s plan to restore the petrol subsidy and promised a ₦110,000 minimum wage.

Young voters should ask how these would be paid for. The Presidency has said the subsidy was costing about $7.5bn a year, money that cannot fund loans, schools and hospitals at the same time. These are the debates that will shape the next four years.

My message to my generation is simple. Demand plans, not scandals. Ask every candidate what they will do about jobs, prices, security, power and education, and how they will fund it. Insist that campaigns are peaceful and fact-based.

A debate that fills the news cycle but leaves no one with a job, a loan or a lower bill is much ado about nothing, and we should refuse to let it set the agenda.

Umar Farouk Bala is National Youth Leader of Tinubu Must Stay (TMS).