Organisation alleged on Thursday that the school
certificate presented by the presidential candidate of
the All Progressives Congress, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu
Buhari (retd.), was forged.
The Director of Media and Publicity of the
organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, made the
allegation at a press conference in Abuja.
He, however, added that the organisation had yet to
contact the school that issued the certificate to either
confirm or deny its authenticity.
But when one of our correspondents spoke with the
school Principal, Mr. Isyaku Bello on the telephone, he
said the certificate he signed was genuine.
The principal said, "If they are doubting the result,
then they should come and see the authentic copy and
not the photocopy sent to us by the Cambridge West
Africa School.
"We are here waiting for anybody doubting what we
have sent out. We are not running away. Let them
come and found out. "
Nevertheless, Fani-Kayode still insisted that the
document, which were released by the Ministry of
Education, Katsina State and the University of
Cambridge, was fraudulently procured.
He said those who authored the result must be
arrested by the police and be prosecuted.
He said, "Our conclusion from all these is that the
document purportedly released by the Government
College (Pilot) Katsina, upon which the APC
presidential candidate hopes to bury the doubt about
his eligibility for next month's election is forged,
manipulated and fraudulently procured. It is therefore
untenable in fact and in law.
"We do not know who the authors and masterminds
of this forgery are but whoever they are, we urge them
to come forward and be identified.
"If they fail to come forward voluntarily, we hereby
call on the police and other security agencies to seek
them out, find them, arrest them, interrogate them
and prosecute them, in accordance with the laws of
the land."
Fani-Kayode also called on Buhari to submit himself to
the police to answer charges of perjury, alleging that
the former Head of State lied on oath about his
academic qualification.
This, he said, was what a man who "claims to represent
integrity and due process ought to do in this situation."
He said there was no way that Buhari could extricate
himself from the crisis, adding that the more he tried
"to extricate himself, the more he stumbles into a new
phase in the unfolding narrative of his obvious
complicity in a matter that he claimed borders on
perjury."
He said having carefully studied the statement of result
as signed by the "school principal" and an
"examination officer" of the Government College,
Katsina, as well as the attached document titled,
'University of Cambridge West Africa School Certificate
1961', his campaign organisation believed that the
result was not genuine.
He raised the following observations and comments
on the document.
The former Minister of Information said, "The result
sheet which was attributed to the Cambridge
examination body is clearly a super imposition of one
document on another, as you will shortly see in the
enlarged image of the result sheet as published. The
column lines on the part where names are printed do
not align with the blank columns while there is an
introduction of extraneous lines on some other
columns.
"The document contains an obvious alteration on the
Mathematics column of the candidate, Mohamed
Buhari, who was assumed to have scored an 'F' in the
subject. This raises a very fundamental issue of validity
in view of the fact that the accompanying result sheet
states that 'any alteration or erasure renders this
statement of result invalid.'
"This is the standard practice in all interpretation of
documents, especially academic records. The question
we put to Gen. Buhari and his party is whether this
alteration was done by the University of Cambridge.
Asked if his organisation has made any request to
verify the authenticity of the documents, he said no.
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress Presidential
Campaign Organisation has said that it prefers not to
respond to the provocations of Fani-Kayode, but
rather engage him on issues that have the potential to
bring the greatest good for the greatest number of
Nigerians.
A press statement signed by Director of Media and
Publicity of the APCPCO, Mallam Garba Shehu, on
Thursday said it was laughable the PDP would not let-
go of the educational qualification of the APC
presidential candidate, even when the matter had
been exhaustively laid to rest.
"It is not our desire in the APC presidential campaign
organisation to join an individual who has a record of
talking to please the moment on any petty issue. At
some point in the recent past, it was convenient for
Fani-Kayode to say this of the APC and its leaders:
'What Nigerians need now is to join hands with the
APC leaders, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and
Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu to move the nation
forward. Today, Fani-Kayode sees no desecration in
recanting that same position, just to satisfy his
convenience."
"The APC and its candidate are in this presidential
campaign to discuss issues that will improve the
standard of living of Nigerians and ensure that the
people of this country are properly secured.
Whenever the PDP and its presidential campaign
spokesman feel ready to join us on this noble path, we
will not be willing to join them on petty issues," Shehu
said.
He noted that these distractions are being promoted in
order to provide a blanket cover over the
shortcomings of the Jonathan administration in the
areas of security, employment, war against corruption
and infrastructure.
"Nigerians need no telling that all these distractions
and provocations by Jonathan, the PDP and their
cohorts are aimed at ensuring that they escape
scrutiny over their score card marked by insecurity,
unemployment and rampant corruption," Shehu said.
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