MANY concerned Nigerians who are expecting General
Buhari to live up to the much touted integrity
characterization promoted by his party, are flatly let down
by the current “goat ate my homework” explanation being
proffered for his inability to do a “show me” on the matter
of his personal particulars. It is simply what it looks like,
akin to a kid telling his teacher that a goat ate his
homework to cover for his inability to do his homework
and hence has nothing to submit.

It is a fact of Nigerian history that many northern kids
were encouraged to join the “Boy’s Company” the famous
name used for the Nigerian Military School by lowering the
academic bar of entry. There is no shame in producing
whatever he scored in WASC in 1961, as he claims, to enter
the institution. It is also true that the NDA only became a
degree awarding institution much later in its history, so
the bombast about mocking the army’s credentialing
process does not fly, after all we know of people like
Odumegwu Ojukwu and many others who joined the army
with Oxford degrees, so generalizing the qualifications of
the officers of the pre-1964 sets is simply poppycock.
A weekend newspaper recently regaled Nigerians with
another whitewash, a media stunt chronicling how Buhari
attended a secondary school and how he was a school
prefect cum class monitor; one would have thought that
the spring-cleaners who were trying to airbrush his
academic destitution, will put the matter to rest by
publishing a certificate or a transcript in lieu, but it was
another let down. We know many people who attended
secondary school, but because they did not have the
appropriate finishing documents, they will never join a
queue if the requirement for joining that queue is WAEC
School certificate. Matter-of-fact, as things now stand, if
two queues were formed, one to the right and one to the
left, in which those who do not have secondary school
certificate are to stand on the right, we expect to see
General Buhari in the left queue.
We have also heard many people saying, he has contested
three times, why is it an issue this year? It is an issue
quite simply because this year the law is explicit and
previously no one cared to check, including INEC whose
obligation it is to vet personal particulars. Unlike in
previous years, the INEC form CF001 2015 which he filled
at section C expressly requires all candidates to attach
their academic qualifications. If that is the requirement of
the law, why doesn’t he simply abide by it, why all the
“dogo turenchi”!

It is quite amusing and even astonishing to see the All
Progressive Congress (APC) spokespersons squirming in
obvious discomfort as they give Nigerians the “poker-face”,
trying to express incredulity that the academic credentials
of a retired General should be questioned. The greater
incredulity is on the side of the voting public, who are
simply awestruck that the APC and General Buhari find it
easier to show the certificate or other evidentiary proof,
than to bluster. Even more shocking is the fact that one
could not only rise to be a General in the army with such
an academic chasm, but will in fact be left with the
responsibility of superintending our petroleum industry,
Presidency and further return to contest democratic
presidency!

The moment the constitutional lawyer, Tunji Abayomi
introduced the circumlocution about a rapist and how to
classify school attended according to class performance
rather than school leaving examination, the rabbit came
out of the hat. Bill Gates is famously projected as the most
popular and most successful Harvard dropout, but no one
has ever called him a Harvard graduate. If the real
explanation is that Buhari entered the army via the “Boys
Company” by affirmative exemption, why not just say it,
and let it ride. The problem with the APC’s explanation is
that this matter of trying to circumvent the law has poured
a lot of dirt on their integrity pontifications, and integrity
is like a balloon one lying prick and it is gone. The current
“goat ate my homework” explanation by Buhari and the
APC, or the referral to Baga just doesn’t stick. Or is
Buhari’s certificate in Baga? When you lie about small
things, then the big things are certainly going to be a
problem, because now, we are more likely to believe that
the denial about acting as a tribal bigot on that visit to
Agodi to confront governor Lam Adesina is another denial;
that the denial of Sharia expansionism at that seminar in
Kaduna in 2001 is merely a denial of the reality; that that
denial of the tracking of the missing 2.8 billion dollars to
private accounts in the Midland Bank in the United
Kingdom was merely a denial of the fact; that the
outstanding denial of that missing 25 billion naira at the
PTF is merely a denial of the fact; and that with these
serial denials what the APC is actually offering Nigerians is
nothing but sheer fantasies and delusions. The APC and
Buhari must therefore come clean or go home!