The judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District, Jeffrey Gilbert has revealed why he ordered the Chicago University, to release President Bola Tinubu’s academic certificates to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.
Recall that Atiku had sought the court’s subpoena to obtain Tinubu’s academic records following several alleged inconsistencies found in his his academic documents, which he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under oath.
On the other hand, Tinubu had fought at the court to block Atiku’s access to the documents from the university.
According to him, granting Atiku access to his records would infringe on his privacy rights under Family Educational and Privacy Rights Act (FERPA), a U.S. law that protects academic records of students.
But Gilbert, in his ruling on Tuesday, September 19, while giving the order, said that Tinubu had already weakened his education privacy rights when he submitted a contentious certificate to run for office in 2022.
According to the judge, the need to confirm the genuineness or otherwise of the certificate that Tinubu submitted to INEC outweighed his personal concerns over its consequences.
Gilbert added that Atiku’s petition, in which the records he sought would be used, far outweighed Tinubu’s privacy interest, because he, by himself, exposed his records to public scrutiny when he submitted a controversial diploma to INEC, knowing the political stakes of other contenders.
Gilbert said FERPA permitted records disclosure “if it is necessary to comply with a lawfully issued subpoena or judicial order.
“Here, the court finds that applicant’s interest in obtaining Intervenor’s records from CSU outweighs intervenor’s privacy rights because intervenor put his diploma at issue by submitting it to the INEC.
“There is, however, a ‘significantly heavier burden’ on the party requesting educational records to show that the interest in obtaining the records outweighs the privacy interest of the student,” the court ruled.
The judge said Atiku satisfied the burden and met the criteria for Section 1782, the statute that allows the U.S. to turn over records “for use in a proceeding before a foreign tribunal.”
Gilbert ordered CSU to provide Atiku with all the requested records within two days.
“For all of the reasons discussed above, Atiku Abubakar’s application pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782 for an order directing discovery from Chicago State University for use in a foreign proceeding [ECF No. 1] is granted.
“Respondent CSU shall produce all relevant and non-privileged documents in response to requests for production Nos. 1 through 4 (as narrowed by the court) in applicant subpoena within two days of the entry of this memorandum opinion and order,” Gilbert ruled.
