President Bola Ahmed Tinubu
The story of Ahmed Tinubu and Chicago State University is a uniquely human story of which great literature and movies could be made. It shows humanity in its intriguingly natural state. How I wish a creative mind could explore the imperfections and foibles of human nature as revealed in this story.
Here you have a man who has everything, almost everything, any man would hope to have in his lifetime. He practically owns Lagos State. He controls billions of money and millions of people. For 24 years, nothing happened in Lagos without his approval. Nobody held public office in Lagos from Local Government Counselor to the judges and the Senators and Governors without his approval. Do you realize that there is no judge sitting in Lagos State today who was appointed without the approval of Tinubu? That actually means that Tinubu has God-like control over Lagos and over your life if you reside in Lagos. And recently, he achieved his only remaining ambition in life – that is, becoming the President of Nigeria. When I met Tinubu in 2008, (very nice and friendly man, don’t get me wrong), Tinubu told me he wanted to meet President Barak Obama. How did that come about? In introducing myself, he got to know I graduated from Harvard Law School in 1994 and Obama graduated in the same law school in 1991. He learnt that I knew Obama personally. That was what led to the casual comment that he would like to meet Obama. Today, or until the latest controversy over his certificate, Obama will be begging to meet Tinubu. That is how powerful and successful Tinubu has become over the years.
The irony and the purpose of this post is in the fact that this man who has everything is actually desperately lacking one thing and he can’t have it. That thing Tinubu lacks is a quality educational background that he could be proud of. He is not proud of Chicago State University. And that was why in 1999, he falsely claimed to have graduated from University of Chicago which is a fundamentally different university from Chicago State University. Continue Reading…
For someone who has always lived in Nigeria, you will not understand the American university system and you will tend to use your Nigerian experience to judge what you hear or read. But in the United States, nothing could be further apart among themselves than the universities. In Nigeria, you have federal universities, state universities and private universities and they are all the same in almost everything. But in the United States, universities are different in quality and rating. The top universities are the Ivy League universities – Harvard, Yale, Colombia, Stanford, University of Chicago (not Chicago State University), etc. To get into these universities, you need to be super smart. The competition is too tough and admission very extremely rigorous. Then, among the lowest and poorest universities are the community colleges like Chicago State University (the one Tinubu attended). Almost everybody who wants to go to university is admitted to these low-end universities.
The difference between these categories of universities is so wide both in admission requirements, the quality of professors, the school fees and the places their graduates work upon graduation. For example, school fees at Harvard University is about $100,000 dollars per annum for each student, while in Chicago State University, school fees, if you pay at all, is less than $15,000 per annum. At Harvard University or University of Chicago, you have Nobel Prize-winning professors, while in Chicago State University, you have the opposite. Indeed, it is nearly unheard of for a graduate of Chicago State University to become the President of a country or a member of the US Congress or Senate or stuff like that. You can see from the poor manner in which Chicago State University handles its academic records that it is near the bottom of the universities in America.
When Tinubu became the Governor of Lagos, the billionaire and the mover and shaker of Lagos, and then Nigeria, it was clear to him that Chicago State University did not fit his new status. Hence, he lied that he graduated from University of Chicago. That lie was busted and he eventually withdraw it and said that it was a mistake, that he meant Chicago State University, not University of Chicago. That was about 20 years ago. Since then, it is clear that Tinubu had been haunted by the desperation to overcome the burden of coming from the “wrong” university or of having poor academic background.
The lesson of the Tinubu story is that you should never envy anybody. However difficult your current position may appear to be, never envy anybody. That is because the people you envy may also be envying you. Can you imagine how peaceful and smooth everything would have been for Tinubu today if he could point clearly to a credible university he attended which will have a credible process of record-keeping? It is an irony that Tinubu’s presidency now rests on something so small and so simple – his questionable certificate from a questionable source. If Tinubu had graduate from Harvard or University of Chicago, none of this will ever happen. He would not have need to get certificate from “a third party vendor” because reputable universities control their on certificate printing process and their records are clear and accurate.
And those who graduated from Harvard, University of Chicago, etc do not even realize the value of their certificates. That is human nature: what you have, you do not value and those who don’t have it are willing to kill for it. Recently, I met a friend of mine. He is an America Green-Card-holder. He was willing to forfeit his Green Card for no clear reason. But he met one Nigerian millionaire who was willing to pay $1,000,000 to get a Green Card. He was shocked. He asked me why the millionaire was willing to pay so much for a green card. I told him that it was the requirement of American Immigration laws – that as investor who wished to migrate to America with his family, he needed to invest $1,000,000 in the United States to get a green card. This friend suddenly realized the value of his own green card. He doesn’t have a dime in his pocket. He must have been wishing to be like the millionaire, not knowing that the millionaire was ready to pay one million dollars to be like him. He couldn’t believe that the same green card he did not seem to value was something someone was willing to pay a million dollars for.
So, the story of Tinubu and Chicago State University is a story of human nature. By the way, it is possible that someone in Chicago State University might have helped in any forgery or lies over this certificate issue. The America justice will eventually get into it. The university is a small place where such corruption could happen. And if it did happen, someone within the university will eventually be arrested for conspiracy. In fact, Atiku should have pledged a one-million-dollar for anybody who could give information to expose corruption over the Tinubu’s certificate. Don’t be surprised that someone will come out from that university to claim that award. And who else do you think would be implicated in any conspiracy charge? Your president. That is how dicey this is. It all depends now on what the Illinois State police or the FBI does. They may decide to look into it. It is shocking to see that a whole country’s destiny could be at the mercy of another country’s police force over such a small thing. Continue Reading…
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