By Kennedy Emetulu.
Despite
all pretensions to the contrary, it’s squeaky bum time for the Teflon
General and his many supporters. Two weeks into the campaign, the
talking point is not the highly-promoted idea of a clueless President
Goodluck Jonathan or his supposed lack of achievements (which the APC
had hoped to make the issue in the campaign), but the controversy
surrounding General Muhammadu Buhari’s supposed lack of academic
certificates to constitutionally and lawfully qualify him to contest for
the Office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Of
course, politics is no respecter of reputations (real or forged), but
each time you hear Muhammadu Buhari talk or respond to legitimate
queries by Nigerians and the press on the issue of his certificates, you
can’t help but think he’s shell-shocked by the fact that people
continue to raise questions and make legitimate inferences from this
about his character, qualifications and the quality of change he
proposes. Almost always responding irritably to all questions in
relation to the matter, he constantly veers off to accuse the PDP of
desperation on one hand, while pleading desperately that we move on to
discuss insecurity and corruption (his favourite subjects at his
hypocritical best) on the other. Yet, what all that tells us is the
state of play. The general’s ass is on fire and all is not well in his
paradise! But, the PDP leaders themselves have not been the originators
of his troubles. Ordinary Nigerians are the ones asking the questions
and the PDP folks have merely joined the bandwagon and sometimes played
cheerleaders for these questioning citizens, obviously because of the
potential political benefit to them. After all, no one should be looking
a gift horse in the mouth.
To get an idea of what Buhari has
lost from all this, let’s rewind to two weeks ago when the campaigns
started in earnest. Buhari was walking on water and what was supposed to
be a popular wave of disenchantment with President Goodluck Jonathan.
Not that there was any particular reason for this except that Buhari’s
American and other foreign spin-doctors have created a seemingly new
being whose mere existence was getting young people in a frenzy of
hero-worship. Suddenly, everyone was touching his new suits, hankies,
babanriga, agbada, efe Ishiagu and abeti-aja to get healed of this
supposed national curse that is Goodluck Jonathan. His social network
warriors adorned their Sunday best, picked their cymbals and drums and
strummed their acoustic guitars to high heavens in precipitate
celebration! The din was overwhelming.
Affidavit. Haha!
Affidavit! Now, it is not the fact that there is an affidavit that is
the issue, but the claims made in it by Buhari. Under oath, he claimed
that all his certificates are with the Secretary to the Military Board.
This man has been contesting the presidency for 12 years now and has in
the course of that been filling INEC forms, but a little change in the
requirements for this year requires he shows evidence of qualification
for the first time, which is why he had to swear the affidavit. It’s
noteworthy that of all the presidential aspirants from all the parties
contesting the election, only Buhari has no certificate to show as
required. Only Buhari had cause to swear an affidavit.
It would
not have been a problem if not for the claims made in the affidavit.
Clear-eyed Nigerians noted that no one leaves the original and
photocopies of their certificates with their original employers. And
even in the very, very unlikely scenario that this is the case, you
don’t go swear an affidavit to state clearly that you know where they
are when nothing stops you, especially as a former head of state, from
getting them from the said Secretary to the Military Board for the
purposes of meeting the legal requirements to contest for the presidency
of the nation. The army no longer employs you, so why not just write
the Secretary of the Military Board in whose custody or care you claim
the certificates are and request they send them to you or to INEC? In
the absence of this and in the face of the claim in the affidavit,
Nigerians who are your prospective new employers have a right to demand
that you explain what is going on.
But while Nigerians have this
right, Buhari’s approach to answering the questions and discharging the
duty of explanation left much to be desired. First, we had the claim by
the APC party leadership that his certificates were destroyed or
vandalized by his military colleagues who overthrew him in August 1985
when they raided his home. This immediately points to the possibility of
perjury against Buhari for his earlier claims in the affidavit. If
there was any doubt about this, Buhari himself inadvertently confirmed
this when he addressed the press in Kano on the morning of Wednesday, 21
January 2015 with the aim of drawing a line on the controversy. Hear
him:
“Good Morning, Gentlemen of the Press. I only consented to
address you this morning because of the genuine concern expressed by
many supporters and other well-meaning Nigerians that the issue be
addressed. Otherwise, I would have dismissed it for what it is - sheer
mischief and would not have considered it an issue worth the Nation's
while. I had assumed all along that all my records were in the custody
of the Military Secretary of the Nigerian Army. Much to my surprise, we
are now told that although a record of the result is available, there
are no copies of the certificates in my personal file….”
Let’s
ignore the arrogant, petulant, condescending and insulting preface, but
rather focus on his claim that he had assumed all along that all his
records were in the custody of the Military Secretary of the Nigerian
Army. The point is we are talking specifics and he is talking general;
we are talking of his certificates, he is talking records. Of course,
his records are with the army and they have addressed the nation clearly
on this, showing what they have by way of records and these do not
include certificates. They said Buhari joined the army, not on the
strength of any presented certificate, but on the strength of an undated
letter from his secondary school principal recommending him and
guaranteeing that he would pass and present a certificate later. But, in
any event, there was no time such a certificate was presented, rather
what the army said was that an entry was later made in his file to the
effect that he had passed certain subjects in the West African School
Certificate (WASC) examination in 1961. Who made the entry, when and in
what circumstances, we were not told. Buhari himself has not claimed he
took the certificate to the army after he obtained it or that he sent it
to them through anyone else, so why he would assume it is in the
custody of the Secretary to the Military Board is a mystery.
Of
course, we’ve heard Buhari and the APC attempt to drag the army into
their politics of deceit by claiming the army was being partisan by
offering its own side of the story, but we are proud that the Nigerian
Army did not fall for this. General Ibrahim Babangida himself is
reported to have jumped on the bandwagon of support for Buhari, warning
that the military should not be politicized over this certificate issue
when in fact, it is Buhari himself who lied about his certificates being
with the army. What do people expect the army to do when Buhari told
lies against them? It’s a source of pride to Nigerians and Nigeria that
all the officers who spoke on the army’s behalf on the matter spoke
truthfully, clearly and professionally. They presented the facts as they
are and Buhari was forced to eat humble pie by claiming it was all an
assumption after all. The simple truth is he lied under oath and it’s
not the army’s fault that he did.
And that is the only problem
here. Okay, I know that several people are having a field day playing
forensic experts, turning the published ‘Statement of Result’ up and
down, side to side and reaching uncharitable conclusions, but it’s par
the course. If you use a spoon to scoop sugar from outside into your
home, do make arrangements to welcome the ants at your doorstep. There
are so, so many discrepancies in the form and substance of the released
result that it’s virtually impossible to defend Buhari and his advisers.
I mean, what was the point of the so-called ‘Statement of Result’ from
the Katsina State Ministry of Education with the superimposed current
picture of Buhari and the tortuous dating? Quite apart from the fact
that they do not have the authority to release the result of an
examination, because they are not the examining body, a Statement of
Result by its very nature is a temporary document that expires at most
after five years of issue to be replaced thereafter by a certificate. If
they were releasing the original Statement of Result by way of evidence
of certificate later obtained, that would be understandable; but to be
issuing a “Statement of Result” today for a 1961 examination via the
office of the current principal of the successor school is as messy as
they come. Worse still, this was totally unnecessary
Now, the
reason I’m saying it was totally unnecessary is because the issue was
and still is not whether Buhari has a West African School Certificate
(WASC) or when he sat to obtain it. If we follow the provisions of the
Constitution and the law as it is, Buhari qualifies by virtue of merely
having a secondary school education, even where and if he did not earn a
certificate in the end. There is enough evidence that he attended
secondary school.
I am quite aware that my view above is not
shared by a lot of people, including legal luminaries. For instance,
Mike Ozekhome (SAN) had stated that Buhari is not qualified to contest
the February 14 presidential election, because he did not comply with
the provisions of the electoral law in filling the nomination form
submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). While
I agree that Buhari referring INEC to the Secretary of the Military
Board is akin to an applicant for a job referring his interviewers to
the last place he/she worked, that still does not indicate a lack of
qualification. The core of Ozekhome’s case is that unlike in previous
years, INEC’s Form CF001 now requires that candidates not only just fill
their qualifications, but that they must attach photocopies to the form
as well. For not attaching the qualifications as at the time
stipulated, Ozekhome believes Buhari did not meet the minimum
requirements, especially as it should be reasonably expected that before
he submitted the photocopies of these documents to the Military Board
as he claimed, Buhari would have been expected to have the originals
with him. If he does not have the qualifications to tender, maybe
because they are lost, burnt or stolen, all he needed to do was apply to
WAEC to be issued a letter certifying that he has the qualification.
While
the argument is sound and reasonable, it’s still not exactly the law.
For me, his is a form versus substance argument and in the case of an
important election like this I would expect that a public policy
argument in support of Buhari would win the day, considering the actual
wordings and requirements of the Constitution. But in arguing this
point, I must quickly admit that Buhari’s actions have sometimes removed
the grounds upon which he should ordinarily have relied on. For
instance, Section 31 (2)-(5) of the Electoral Act (as amended) does
provide room for the tendering of an affidavit in lieu of the
certificates he couldn’t produce, but it states in Section 31(5) as
follows: “Any person who has reasonable grounds to believe that any
information given by a candidate in the affidavit or any document
submitted by that candidate is false may file a suit at the Federal High
Court, High Court of a State or FCT against such person seeking a
declaration that the information contained in the affidavit is false”.
Then Section 31(6) states: “If the Court determines that any of the
information contained in the affidavit or any document submitted by that
candidate is false, the Court shall issue an order disqualifying the
candidate from contesting the election”.
From our earlier
analysis, it is obvious that Buhari’s claim in the affidavit is false
and he is at the mercy of any person who has reasonable grounds to
believe that the information he gave in the affidavit is false. So,
whatever benefit he would have hoped to gain by making the affidavit is
vitiated by the fact that the claim he made therein about all his
academic qualifications being with the Secretary of the Military Board
is patently false. Basically he has lied under oath and that’s easy to
prove, because he himself had later come out to say publicly at a press
conference that it was an assumption. You don’t make assumptions under
oath.
Otherwise, the law is straightforward. Of course, Femi
Fani-Kayode, the Director of Media and Publicity for the President
Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organization was right when he said academic
qualification is constitutionally a threshold issue “that cannot be
waived for any citizen, no matter how highly placed and irrespective of
whichever region such individual comes from except as provided by the
Constitution”. But it all comes down to how you choose to interpret the
relevant constitutional provisions. With all due respect, I see the
provisions differently. In terms of qualifications needed to contest the
presidency, Section 131 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) states:
“A person shall be qualified for election to the office of the President
if - (a) he is a citizen of Nigeria by birth; (b) he has attained the
age of forty years; (c) he is a member of a political party and is
sponsored by that political party; and (d) he has been educated up to at
least School Certificate level or its equivalent”.
Section
318(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) interprets "School
Certificate or its equivalent" in subsection (d) above to mean:
(a) a Secondary School Certificate or its equivalent, or Grade II Teacher’s Certificate, the City and Guilds Certificate; or
(b) education up to Secondary School Certificate level; or
(c) Primary Six School Leaving Certificate or its equivalent and -
(i)
service in the public or private sector in the Federation in any
capacity acceptable to the Independent National Electoral Commission for
a minimum of ten years, and
(ii) attendance at courses and training
in such institutions as may be acceptable to the Independent National
Electoral Commission for periods totalling up to a minimum of one year,
and
(iii) the ability to read, write, understand and communicate in
the English language to the satisfaction of the Independent National
Electoral Commission, and
(d) any other qualification acceptable by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
So,
if Buhari had tendered his Primary Six School Leaving Certificate or
his First School Leaving Certificate and considering that he meets the
requirement of Section 318 (1)(c)(i) through his military service at the
highest level, this would have sufficed. Also, by virtue of the
qualifications he got from military training, he would have also
qualified under Section 318(1)(d). In fact, he would have likely
qualified under Section 318(1)(c)(iii) and more relatedly, under Section
318 (1)(b), even if he did not ultimately get a certificate as there is
evidence that he attained education up to Secondary School Certificate
level. Even if he had sat the WASC and failed, he still would have
qualified. Indeed, there is already judicial authority for this
interpretation in the Court of Appeal case of Action Congress of Nigeria
(ACN) vs. Jimoh Afiz Adelowo, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) LPELR-19718 (CA). This
was a case decided by the Ibadan Judicial Division of the Court on the
12th of October 2012. The Presiding Justices were Monica B. Bongban
(JCA), Joseph Shagbaor Ikyegh (JCA) and Chidi Nwaoma Uwa (JCA). The
latter delivered the Leading Judgment.
The facts of the case are
that it was an appeal from the Election Petition Tribunal sitting in
Ibadan wherein the petitioner (ACN), the Appellant in this case,
challenged the return of the 1st Respondent (Jimoh Afiz Adelowo) as the
winner of the election for the Federal House of Representatives seat of
Irepo/Oorelope/Olorunsogo Federal Constituency. The petition at the
Election Tribunal, which had as one of its grounds non-qualification of
the 1st Respondent to contest the election, was dismissed. The Notice of
Appeal contained 16 grounds of Appeal from which five issues were
formulated for determination by the court. One of those issues was
framed thus: “Whether in view of the state of the pleadings, the 1st
Respondent has a duty to proof (sic) his possession of minimum
educational qualification as to warrant his qualification for election
into the National Assembly and whether he is qualified to contest the
election into Irepo/Oorelope/Olorunsogo Federal Constituency.”
On
that very matter of constitutional qualification, the Court ruled:
"From the clear words of the constitutional provision, it did not
require or state that an aspirant or candidate… must pass or possess a
certificate. The most important thing is to have been educated up to
secondary school level or the equivalent, passing the senior secondary
school certificate examination and obtaining a certificate cannot be
read into…the 1999 constitution as amended. What is required under the
law is that there must be evidence that a candidate is educated up to
the required level and not that he must or should produce a certificate
to prove the level of education attained…."
Buhari had enough
evidence to show that he was educated up to the required level without
having to swear an affidavit or procure the poor principal of Government
College, Katsina to “forge” a “Statement of Result” on the letterhead
of the Katsina State Ministry of Education. It would have been
sufficient for him to swear an affidavit to the effect that he has lost
his own original copy of his West African School Certificate and then
attach a photocopy of the University of Cambridge West African School
Certificate made from the copy available at the school or simply apply
to the West African Examination Council (WAEC) for a letter certifying
that he has obtained the certificate, which would have served the same
purpose. In fact, any of his certificates from courses he attended as an
officer of the Nigerian Army would have also sufficed.
But now,
he has unnecessarily put himself in a pickle over perjury and has left
himself open to be challenged by any citizen who feels like doing so,
with a high chance of being disqualified by the courts in line with
Section 31(6) of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended). The fact that he
even chose to go ahead with all this after INEC had published his name
as contestant within 7 days as required and after Professor Attahiru
Jega himself has stated firmly that INEC had no power to disqualify him
calls to question his judgment. I mean, if the PDP feels INEC has erred
in law by publishing his name, this should have been left for the PDP to
sort out with INEC in court, rather than put himself in this mess in a
supposed attempt to clarify things.
So, no matter what Nigerians
are saying about the qualifications of General Buhari, the issue for us
is not and should not be whether or not he is qualified, because he is
qualified by the wordings of the Constitution and the law as stated in
the books and by judicial authority. Instead, the issues here are
Buhari’s decision-making capabilities, the quality of advice he gets
from those around him, his touted integrity and the implication of all
this for his chances in the forthcoming election.
On the matter
of his decision-making capabilities, it is scandalous that a man of his
age, supposed education and experience cannot understand the basic
requirements of qualification and the simple things he needed to do to
meet the constitutional threshold. Why make such a hash of such a simple
decision? Is this the type of man we need to run our nation’s affair? I
mean, some of us have had a good laugh when we saw his filled INEC form
and noted that he could not fill certain parts of the “PART B”
requesting for simple information about his surname and other names. We
guffawed when in place of surname, he filled in his surname and first
name and in place of other names he put “N/A”. But that is mild compared
to what he’s done over this certificate issue. Can we afford to entrust
our nation’s future to a man who cannot fill a simple INEC form and who
would put himself through a grinder needlessly, because he simply did
not understand basic English? Are we prepared to hand over Nigeria to
Calamity Buhari?
On the issue of the type of advice he has, that
again is a scandal. From his own comments at the Kano press conference,
it’s obvious he did all this on the basis of advice from his supporters.
His running mate is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and they’ve
hired the best of the best from abroad and at home to advise and manage
him. But all we’ve seen is only a change of wardrobe as he goes about in
chameleonic mode. It seems their money cannot get them a good brain
makeover as Buhari is still his stuttering and tottering self and from
the evidence of this certificate saga, he’s now His Bumbling Highness. I
mean, who hires such inept lieutenants and advisers but a poor, poor
leader or a leader not in charge of his own campaign? Is this what we
wish on Nigeria?
Of course, by lying under oath, he has shot his
integrity to smithereens in the eyes of decent voters. Even a man that
commands such blind loyalty from otherwise informed people will have a
lot of them now scratching their spinning heads. Already there are
rumblings within the APC in the North and in the South about the
viability of a stuttering and shuffling 72-year old candidate flying
their flag. Not a few are quietly expressing buyers’ remorse at the
moment, because with him going to the United States soon and returning
to get on with the grueling campaign, three weeks is looking a long,
long time for the man. Let’s not sugarcoat it - from here on, it can
only get worse.
But the worst outcome for Buhari in all this is
something gratuitously tragic. Here is a man deified everywhere as the
symbol of change fast turning an effigy of the failed past before the
very eyes of his acolytes. Okay, admittedly this hero-worshipping is by
people who in rage against President Jonathan wouldn’t even bother to
interrogate the quality of change he preaches, yet the fall from grace
is remarkable. They’ve hyped the fellow so much that they were openly
telling Nigerians that his win is a fait accompli. Yet, what this
episode has revealed is that the emperor has no moral clothes to cover
his wrinkled nakedness. Whether this mess is as a result of his
arrogance or cluelessness is immaterial; what matters is that we do not
need in our national leader whatever qualities he thinks he’s exhibiting
through this episode.
I was chatting with a friend who
ordinarily is not greatly interested in politics, but who this time had
done everything to ensure he gets to vote. For more than three weeks
now, he’d enjoyed telling me he would be voting Buhari. It got to a
point I stopped discussing politics with him again, because I considered
him a lost cause. But yesterday, he came around with his 19 years old
daughter and solemnly informed me he won’t be voting Buhari anymore on
February 14. I thought he was pulling my legs, so I ignored him. But his
daughter quickly explained why. The girl had some of her mates visiting
her at home and the dad overheard them poking fun at Buhari. They
couldn’t understand how he became a general in the army on the back of a
letter from his school principal. When my friend confronted them, it
was her own daughter that asked him: “What does Buhari know about me?
How can a man who forges certificates while preaching anti-corruption
inspire me? Dad, this guy made it to a general only because he’s Fulani
and he’s about to make it to Aso Rock only because he’s Fulani and
nothing more!” I quickly interjected by saying that was a tad harsh, as
there is no proof the man forged anything, but I could as well be
talking to a rock as the girl proceeded to show me in detail why the
certificate issued is a forgery. “Uncle, why you dey argue like this
now? This thing dey very clear O! Na Oluwole be this!” My friend simply
summarized his reason for not wishing to vote Buhari again as mental
fatigue. “I don’t have the head for all this, I’m tired!” I sighed as we
spent the rest of the evening sipping wine and watching TV in awkward
silence. For my friend, I think he simply cannot afford to take a
decision he cannot defend before his daughter, especially in the face of
mounting evidence against that choice, but I can’t help thinking this
is how most independent-minded voters originally drifting towards Buhari
are feeling at the moment. How long can they continue to defend crass
incompetence masquerading as class?
The problem with us is that
we do not appreciate history. That is why we keep making the same
mistakes, turning in a circle. That is why 2014 sometimes looks like
1966. I’ve been seeing excerpts of Ben Gbulie’s Five Majors making the
rounds. Coincidentally, I read that book two weeks before the Buhari’s
coup. I can say it is one of several books by Nigerians and informed
foreigners that have aided my understanding of the military
establishment and the leadership at the time. When men like Ben Gbulie
and other Southerners with superior qualifications were spending two
years at the prestigious Sandhurst to be commissioned officers, Buhari
and his Northern brothers were spending less than six months in
Aldershot to attain the same thing and on return they were having
accelerated promotions ahead of their Southern counterparts for no other
reason than that they were Fulani or Hausa. Buhari’s certificate saga
is making people go back to their history to see the horrible things
they thought they had left behind stare them back in their face from our
contemporary national pages. When a young university graduate who’s
pounded the streets for three years without a job reads that Buhari
joined the army with a letter from his secondary school principal and in
a few months became an officer, what is he to think? Would we be
telling him this was years ago when we know that this still obtains
today in the same Nigeria under which we all claim equal citizenship?
It
is precisely for these reasons we have been clamouring for a genuine
National Conference, so we can sit down and discuss the basis of our
unity as a country and fashion a fairer way forward for everybody of any
ethnic nationality within one nation. We know that there are people
Nigeria has invested in, but who have used that investment against
Nigeria and other ethnic groups but their own. We see these people
running things and treating other Nigerians like second-class citizens.
Buhari belongs to that class. We saw it when he was head of state in the
way he humiliated Southern leaders and we’ve seen it since he left
office in the way he championed divisive Northern causes against the
rest of Nigeria. For a long time now, he has effectively been the
political spokesperson of Boko Haram. He had declared to us that an
attack against Boko Haram is an attack against the North; he has
attacked the Nigerian Army for defending the nation against their
threat, yet he’s been the one shouting loudest against President
Jonathan over insecurity.
President Goodluck Jonathan has
superintended a National Conference, the first of its kind without any
underhanded political agenda and whose result we’re pleasantly looking
forward to begin to implement in the near future. Is that not how modern
nations develop? But what are we hearing from Buhari? Nothing on the
National Question, just a cold, calculated desire to implement Sharia
all over Nigeria! The Buhari who joined the army on the strength of a
mere note from his principal because he’s Fulani, the Buhari that was
promoted ahead of his more brilliant and more qualified mates and who
was and still is a beneficiary of the dark history of the Civil War and
the unjust, corrupt and unfair quota system forcefully put in place by
him and his forebears wants to lead our new nation with new dreams. With
Arab money, money stolen by his associates from states’ coffers
nationwide and foreign spin-doctors earning their dollars, they are
turning the ordinarily visionary young people of our country into robots
maniacally chanting his name, ready, able and willing to deliver
Nigeria to him without a thought as to what happens thereafter! They
have worked themselves into a frenzy of hate against Jonathan in their
blind love for Buhari and the fairytales he’s coated in. The die is
cast! We can smell the burning flesh already, can’t we? Good! Let’s just
keep in mind that the victims of history are not those who lived or
didn’t live it, but those who refuse to learn its lessons. A word is
enough for the patriot.
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