Article
written by Reno Omokri. Please read on..I read the statement by the
Senior Special Assistant to the President on media and publicity, Garba
Shehu, saying that President Muhammadu Buhari is not involved in any
certificate scandal and I was rather surprised that a professional like
Garba, whom I know to be a polished media man, would even have responded
to that story from The Punch Newspaper in the first place.
The
response was unnecessary. As a Presidential spokesman, you do not
respond to every story. In fact, under President Obama, there was a
template in the White House which was that if multiple media networks
are not carrying a story then it is not worth responding to it because
by responding to a small story, you make it a big story. You give it the
attention that makes other news houses interested in it and that is
what Garba Shehu's statement did.
Now, to say
that President Buhari does not have a certificate scandal is an act of
dishonesty and to quote Edmund Burke, Garba is being economical with the
truth.
The
Presidency is being clever by half by saying that President Muhammadu
Buhari, like Dino Melaye, is not involved in a certificate scandal. That
is patently dishonest. President Buhari DOES have a certificate
scandal.
If the
President does not have a certificate scandal, how come he hired
thirteen high priced Senior Advocates of Nigeria to defend him in a case
brought to compel him to provide the certificate or proof that he has
one, including one SAN, Kola Awodein, who gave a 'gift' of ₦500,000 to
Justice Ademola, the judge handling the case against the President, at a
time the case was pending before him!
A man who has
no certificate scandal will simply produce the original certificate or
if it is lost he will apply to the University of Cambridge International
Examinations for a Certified True Copy of his results. You do not need
to defend the truth with 13 SANs. The truth will defend itself.
Now, do not
get me wrong. I am not saying that Buhari has no GCE Certificate. I do
not know if he has or does not have a certificate. What I know is that
the story keeps
changing. We read that the Nigerian Army had his certificate until they
denied. Then we were told that the certificate was seized by the
Babangida administration when Buhari was overthrown in 1985. We have
also read that the certificate is with President Muhammadu Buhari's
provincial school in Katsina. Which is it? Your guess is as good as
mine. What I am saying is that except hiring thirteen SANs is part of
his strategy for fulfilling his campaign promise of employing three
million Nigerians in two years, it is safe to conclude that President Muhammadu Buhari HAS a certificate scandal! A confirmed one.
On January
21, 2015, the West African Examinations Council, WAEC, even intervened
and said that they could assist in verifying the certificate if only
then candidate Buhari would officially request them to.
On that date,
WAEC's spokesman, Mr. Yusuf Ari said, "WAEC cannot take any action
except, the owner of the certificate asked us to do so. We are an
independent body, therefore, we cannot be partisan on this issue."
Would it be
far easier to just ask the relevant authorities to release the documents
as Mr. Ari said, than to hire thirteen SANs?
In fact, I
wish the efforts by Dino Melaye's enemies in the All Progressive
Congress to verify his certificates can be applied to verifying the
certificate of another powerful man in the APC. We should not treat Dino
Melaye one way and President Muhammadu Buhari another way. If they
think Dino Melaye is unfit to hold his Senatorial seat because he did
not graduate from university (which is untrue) then they should apply
their logic to all political office holders no matter how high they are.
If Dino must present his certificate then others must also present
their own too! What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!
For the
avoidance of doubt, the minimum educational requirement to contest a
Senate seat is the equivalent of a West African Senior School
Certificate Examination. There is absolutely no doubt that Dino Melaye
has one. Yet so much pressure was piled on him because of his Bachelor
certificate simply because he ruffled the 'cabal's' feathers.
If
questionable certificates are the issue then it is not Dino we should be
looking at! There is somebody who has more questions about his school
certificate than Dino. Why are we shining the spotlight on Dino and
pandering to President Muhammadu Buhari? Just as the Senate Summoned the
Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University to give evidence in this
matter, the Senate should likewise summon the representative of
Cambridge International Examinations to answer questions about President
Muhammadu Buhari's certificate!
In a nation
in recession with two of the deadliest terror groups on earth, our
fixation is on the certificate of a Senator without executive power!
That is the problem with Nigeria's leadership. Our current leaders
cannot spend time planning the progress of this nation, but they can
devote razor like focus to planning the downfall of real and perceived
enemies even to the smallest and most ridiculous detail!
And the fact
that the spotlight on Dino Melaye's certificate is being shone by
elements within the APC is yet another example of how divided that party
is.
This is even
as the recent contretemps between Malam Nasir El-Rufai and some
mandarins in the 'cabal' has shed more light on why the Buhari
administration has failed to deliver the goods it promised.
Never in the history of Nigeria have we ever had a government so divided against itself.
The Nigerian
Customs Service Versus Nigerian Senate, the Directorate of State
Security Versus the Economic Financial Crimes Commission, Nasir El-Rufai
Versus Chief of Staff and the Secretary to the Government of the
Federation, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Versus The
Nigerian Senate, Aisha Buhari Versus the Cabal, Asiwaju Bolaji Tinubu
Versus John Oyegun, Abike Dabiri Versus Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Raji Fashola Versus Akinwunmi Ambode.
Yet you
wonder why this government cannot deliver! If the grass suffers when
only two elephants fight, what do you think will happen to the grass
when all the elephants are fighting simultaneously? A government that
uses all its energies to fight itself will not have any energy left to
fight for you!
And to make
matters worse, the Buhari administration and the APC keep saying former
President Jonathan ruined Nigeria for five years. Yet in those five
years you had affordable food, fuel, dollars and regular salary at the
federal level.
Moreover,
Jonathan did not spend unspecified sums of money on his health abroad
neither did he write letters to the National Assembly defending members
of his cabinet caught red handed in corruption.
Perhaps
Jonathan ruined Nigerian by reviving our previously moribund railways
and made it possible for you to travel by rail from Lagos to Kano at a
cost of ₦1500? Perhaps he ruined Nigeria by building the ONLY standard
gauge modern railway that makes it possible for you to live in Kaduna
and work in Abuja? In fact, I am sure Jonathan ruined President Buhari's
home state of Katsina, by building the ONLY federal university in that
state. If ruining is what Jonathan did for five years, then what will
you call what President Buhari has done to Nigeria in the last two
years?
It is now
tickety-boo in the mind of the apparatchiks of this administration to
lay the blame for all their problems on Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, but there
is only one small problem.
In January 2015, then candidate Muhammadu
Buhari released a campaign ad with a picture of him that said and I
quote "if anything goes wrong, I will take responsibility and fix it.
THAT IS WHAT IT MEANS TO LEAD" (emphasis President Buhari's, not mine).
Going by the
above words of President Muhammadu Buhari himself, we can see quite
clearly that judging him by his own standards, the only possible verdict
is that he has failed as a leader because two years into his
administration he has yet to to "take responsibility and fix it" and is
still blaming his predecessor.
By constantly
blaming Dr. Goodluck Jonathan for the woes of his government, President
Buhari is saying that a man in retirement in Otuoke has more influence
over his administration than he as President does. The reality is that
the penchant to blame the previous administration shows that ex
President Jonathan is more powerful in his absence from power than
incumbent President Buhari is with his presence in power.
Saying
anything to get elected and then breaking the promises you made after
you are elected is deception and the worst form of corruption!
But in truth,
what derailed the Buhari administration and the APC is that they
focused all their energies on destroying Goodluck Jonathan, the PDP and
the Transformation Agenda instead of concentrating on building Muhammadu
Buhari, the APC and the Change Agenda.
Leaders must
realize that power is like fire. You can only make progress with fire if
you use it to light the way in darkness. But if you use it to burn your
enemy's house, after burning his house, the wind will spread the fire
to your own house. Good leaders focus on making progress, bad leaders
are fixated on revenge. You cannot combine both. You must choose one or
the other and President Buhari made the wrong choice.
And the
fixation of the Buhari administration on blaming Jonathan and fighting
its real and perceived enemies has meant that only minimal attention is
being given to the economy with the consequent effect being that a man
who inherited the third fastest growing economy in the world from former
President Jonathan has turned Nigeria into a nation with the world's
fourth worst performing currency!
The effect of President Buhari's mishandling of the economy has been catastrophic on the lives of Nigerians.
Never in the
history of Nigeria has suicide been so widespread as it is today. There
is so much despair in the land. We obviously need permanent police
presence around the Lagoon in Lagos. But my thinking is that even if we
police the lagoon, how many suicides go unreported in cities, towns and
villages across Nigeria?
And even in
the Nigerian Police Force, there is a rising wave of suicide amongst
officers and men which has become so prevalent that the police
authorities themselves have been forced to take action,
At the
beginning of the year, the Assistant Inspector General of Police Zone 5,
Abubakar Mohammed told newsmen that he had received a mandate from the
Inspector General of Police to intervene to stem the rising trend of
suicide within the force. He said and I quote “the IGP has asked us to
now go close to our officers as well as the rank and file to know what
their problems are because the level of suicide within the police is
getting higher. Police officers are killing themselves without knowing
what the problems are”.
So if those
who are meant to prevent suicide have some of the highest rates of
suicide within their midst, what are we to do as a nation?
I am reminded
at this time of Proverbs 29:2 'When the righteous are in authority, the
people rejoice: but when the wicked bears rule, the people mourn.'
This is not
about PDP or APC. If doctors and business men and women are being moved
to suicide, what about the increasing number of unemployed? I call on
churches to shift focus from miracles and financial breakthroughs to
extending love to the broken, lonely, unemployed and abandoned in their
communities. Sell your founders private plane and use the money to feed
thousands as Jesus fed thousands!
Though there
is so much gloom in the land, I want to end this piece on a positive
note, so I will leave my readers this week and every other week with one
of my wisdom nuggets which form the basis of my ministration as a
pastor and an ambassador of Christ.
Reno's Nuggets:
Don't ask for
money from wealthy men. Ask for friendship. A beggar of a rich man is
poor. A friend of a rich man becomes rich. You see, people remain poor
because when they get money they think of the latest phone or shoe
instead of a business idea to invest in. But when you befriend the
wealthy, you learn to think like them. Finally, you can only become
successful by association if you hang out in places where the people you
want to be like hang out #RenosNuggets
Reno Omokri
is a Christian TV talk show host and founder of the Mind of Christ
Christian Center and the Helen and Bemigho Sanctuary for orphans. He is
the author of three books, Shunpiking: No Shortcuts to God, Why Jesus
Wept and Apples of Gold: A Book of Godly Wisdom
