Claims: Mr. Festus Keyamo granted an interview which was published in “This Week” Magazine of 11 November 2002 edition. Mr. Festus Keyamo in the said interview accused Bola Tinubu of corruption and certificate forgery.

 
Background

 
A circulated image from multiple sources on social media contains three claims with respect to ongoing controversies and allegation of certificate forgery against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the general elections, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, who claimed that the president presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to contest the 2023 presidential election.

 
In August, the former Vice President asked an American court to issue a subpoena to Chicago State University for the full details of President Tinubu’s academic records while he was a student there, and to compare them with the certificate he submitted to the electoral commission while registering his candidature to contest for the position of president.

 
The PDP candidate had made the move with the hope of getting President Tinubu disqualified by the Supreme Court for falsifying the Diploma certificate, which he claimed was awarded by Chicago State University in 1979 because forgery is one of the qualifications for disqualifying candidates in the election.

 
Following CSU’s disclosure of all the relevant details, Nigerians have been expressing their opinions and positions on the president’s certificate controversy in a deluge of online comments across the nation, including on social media.

 
As a result, there have been several posts on social media indicating that Festus Keyamo, the Nigerian Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, who was also the spokesperson for President Tinubu Campaign, had once granted an interview which was published in “This Week Magazine” on 11th of November 2002, accusing the president, who was then the governor of Lagos State, of corruption and certificate forgery.

 
According to social media posts from multiple sources  here, here, here here,  including the Nairaland web page,  Festus Keyamo, in the publication, accused Tinubu of  his “Dirty Games”, which did not preclude  certificate forgery and corruption.

 
In one out of many available sources, a X (formerly Twitter) user Mo-Mo with the handle @Morris_Monye posted the said claim on the 8th of October, 2023 with the caption below:

 
“This is Keyamo accusing Tinubu of forgery and false declaration.

“He even accused the media of being complicit in shielding Tinubu.

“Paper is “This Week” Magazines.

“This was 11 November 2002.

“21 years ago.”

Here’s a screenshot of the trending image

 
The post has generated over 199,000 views, 3,513 retweets, 99 quotes, 4,331 likes, and 136 bookmarks as of the time of this report.

 
The fact that Festus Keyamo is a serving minister under President Bola Tinubu prompted iVerify to check the veracity of the claim.

 
VERIFICATION 

 
Claim 1:  Festus Keyamo granted an interview which was published in “This Week” Magazine.

 
Verdict: True.

 
The trending post was subjected to a Google reverse image search to find other internet sources where the image had been previously used.   The circulating image shows that it is from a print version of the paper, which seems not to have an online presence, as searches for its online version came back empty.  iVerify was unable to obtain a link to the magazine’s archive. However, the circulated image from a page of the magazine had a photograph of a younger Festus Keyamo, which had a distinct similarity with an image in a blog post posted by Nairaland tagged “Throwback: Young Festus Keyamo and Former Lagos CP, 22 Years Ago.”

 
Furthermore, iVerify discovered a faint “This Week” footer embedded at the bottom of the magazine page, clearly identifying the page as a copy of This Week magazine, as shown in the image below.

 
Image showing an arrow shape pointed at “This Week” on the magazine page.

Claim 2: The interview report was published in This Week magazine on 11 November 2002.

 
Verdict: Unproven

 
An online search for the magazine “This Week” was carried out, and there was no result showing that the magazine has an online version or archive through which the date of publication could be verified. Also, the image of the page had no date embedded on it; hence, iVerify cannot ascertain the date ascribed to the post.

 
Claim 3: Festus Keyamo, in the said interview, accused Bola Tinubu of corruption and certificate forgery.

 
Verdict: True

 
Using Google Lens to copy the text shown in the image, it was discovered that the interview report ascribed to Festus Keyamo contains statements that confirm the veracity of the allegation.

 
Although it’s not explicitly stated in the statement that Bola Tinubu forged his certificate, reading through the fourth paragraph of the article, Festus Keyamo alleged Bola Tinubu as claimed.  Part of the text of the interview report published in This Week magazine reads.

 
“He needs more money to go to parties here and there, he needed more money to also circulate – to douse the raging controversy of certificate forgery, monetary votes to a section of the public who are responsible for the dissemination of information and to the Lagos State house of assembly, I say this very seriously, Lagos State house of assembly has also been a beneficiary of this. There is one time they were calling it “Toronto allowance,” “Chicago allowance” in the house. I have challenged them on a number of occasions to take me up on this. It was what was used to settle them individually and collectively for standing by the governor and covering truth and promoting falsehood in the case of certificate forgery.”

 
Effort was made to contact Festus Keyamo. An SMS was sent to that effect, for him to give his opinion on the said claim, till the moment of writing this report, there has been no response from him, after 48hours wait.

Message sent to Festus Keyamo
 

Conclusion 

 
The claim that Mr. Festus Keyamo, a serving minister under President Bola Tinubu, once granted an interview which was published on “This Week” magazine where he accused the former governor of Lagos state, now president of the federal republic of Nigeria is TRUE from what has been seen from the printed copy. That the article was published on the 11th of November 2002, is UNPROVEN because of unavailability of the online version. Also, the claim that Festus Keyamo in the said interview accused Bola Tinubu of certificate forgery and corruption, according to evidence available t0 the iVerify this claim is confirmed to be TRUE by what is in print.