satisfied with the credentials of the All Progressives
Congress presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu
Buhari, and has threatened to contest the authenticity
of his academic results.
A top party official, who spoke with Saturday PUNCH
on Thursday, said the ruling party would investigate
Buhari's statement of results issued on Wednesday by
the Katsina State Ministry of Education.
The statement of result and the confidential result
sheet by the University of Cambridge were both dated
January 21, stamped and signed by the Principal and
Examination Officer, Government College, Katsina
(formerly Provincial Secondary School).
In the result sheet, Buhari's name was the second
among the 17 candidates that sat for the Cambridge/
West African School Certificate Examination in 1961.
But the party source who does not want to be named,
said, "The plan of the PDP is to contest Buhari's
academic qualification on two fronts.
"We will first contest the APC presidential candidate's
credentials by writing to all the institutions he
attended for the verification of his certificates. We
already have individuals in our party that are doing
that.
"On the other hand, the ruling party will prevail on the
Ministry of Justice to sue the former head of state for
perjury."
The party official said Buhari had, in the affidavit
submitted to the Independent National Electoral
Commission, claimed that his certificates were with
the military, but the Nigerian Army denied that it had
the ex-head of state's certificates in its custody.
"This means he (Buhari) lied on oath when he said his
credentials were with the army. We are not going to
take this from him at all. It is the job of the Ministry of
Justice to look into this case of perjury and we are
going to remind them."
Buhari had defened the affidavit he submitted by
saying, "I had assumed all along that all my records
were in the custody of the 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."
He said that was why he requested his old school to
release his result.
The Director of Media and Publicity, PDP Presidential
Campaign Organisation, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, at a
press conference in Abuja on Friday, also said a
perjury case should be launched against the APC
candidate.
Fani-Kayode urged Buhari to submit himself to the
police to answer charges of perjury.
He said, "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."
Repeated calls to the mobile telephone number of the
National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Olisa
Metuh, indicated that it was switched off.
A text message sent to him had yet to be responded to
as of the time of filing this report at 6:03pm on Friday.
Attempts by our correspondent to also reach the
Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of
Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, for his comment on
Thursday, was unsuccessful as his phone was switched
off.
The minister had also not responded to a text message
inquiry on the issue.
The police however told one of our correspondents
they would investigate the allegation of perjury against
Buhari if there is a complaint to the force against him.
The Force Public Relations Officer, Emmanuel Ojukwu,
said, "There is no complaint before the police on the
perjury allegation but if there is, we will investigate it.".
In his reaction, the National Publicity Secretary of the
All Progressives Congress, Mr. Lai Mohammed, said the
party was not surprised that the PDP wants to contest
Buhari's school records because it is afraid that
President Jonathan might lose the election.
He said, "Let them go to court. The truth is that they
are not ready for the election. They are making all
these excuses because they are terrified they would
lose the election."
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