Buhari’s certificate forged – PDP

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.