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. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL AND TOUCHING NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES BIOGRAPHY AND SCANDALS
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