The Peoples Democratic Party Presidential
Campaign 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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