Thursday, June 30, 2022

Tinubu And The Certificate Scandal That Refuses To Die

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

IF there is anything that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, would want to die down at this critical moment, it is the certificate scandal that has dogged his political career for more than two decades. Though he survived the scandal when it first reared its ugly head in 1999 even as the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Salisu Buhari, accused of the same scam, lost his plum office, it has refused to go away.

*Tinubu 

Tinubu survived the scandal then because the same gladiators who forced Buhari to resign on July 22, 1999, exactly 49 days after he clinched the coveted seat of the House of Representatives Speaker, turned around to save his neck from the political guillotine. 

And what was the case against Tinubu? 

Like Salisu Buhari who claimed to have attended University of Toronto in Canada and graduated with a degree in Business Administration, when he did not, shortly after he was sworn in as governor of Lagos State on May 29, 1999, there were allegations that Tinubu had perjured and forged the credentials that qualified him to run for the governorship election.

The allegations were contained in a petition dated August 12, 1999, written by Alhaji Jameed Seriki and Dr. Waliu Balogun-Smith. They alleged a discrepancy in Tinubu’s age since the profile published during his inauguration stated that he was born in 1952 and the age on his transcript at the Chicago State University claimed that he was born in 1954.

They also alleged that he did not attend Government College, Ibadan, as was stated in his profile and INEC FORM CF.001, and the University of Chicago as claimed in INEC FORM CF and an affidavit sworn to at the Ikeja High Court of Justice on December 29, 1998. 

Unlike Buhari who had no constitutional bulwark to shield him, by this time, Tinubu was already the governor and so enjoyed immunity, courtesy of Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution.

The onus, therefore, fell on the Lagos State House of Assembly dominated by the Alliance for Democracy, AD, to investigate him and take punitive action if he was deemed to have committed acts constituting gross misconduct.

Of course, that was not going to happen. So, despite the fact that following a motion moved by Tajudeen Jaiyeola Agoro, who represented Lagos Mainland Constituency, the then Speaker, Dr. Olorunimbe Mamora, on Tuesday, September 21, 1999, set up a five-man ad hoc committee comprising Babajide Omoworare (Chairman), Thomas Ayodele Fadeyi, Adeniyi Akinmade, Ibrahim Gbola Gbabijo and Saliu Olaitan Mustapha, to investigate the allegations, Tinubu survived the scare.

But the questions were not answered. In 1999, he claimed to have attended Saint Paul Aroloya Children Home School, Ibadan between 1958 and 1964 and Government College, Ibadan between 1965 and 1969. The petitioners claimed that he did not. So, the question is simple.

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