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OPINION: The Certificate Elephant In Abuja

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By Lasisi Olagunju

The Charleston Gazette was an American newspaper that was born in 1907 but stopped bearing that name in 2015. One of the newspaper’s 1952 editions contained a piece with a clause that may have been written for Tinubu’s Nigeria: “Chicago, that’s an old Indian word meaning ‘get that elephant out of your room’.” Someone said coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous. I would say that this ‘Chicago’ sentence perfectly fits into Nigeria’s current basket of trouble. There is no way you’ll be a user of the English language and you won’t have come across ‘an elephant in the room.’ The first time you heard or read it, you probably wondered how the elephant got into the room in the first place. My English teachers and my dictionary told me that ‘an elephant in the room’ points at a major problem or a solution or a matter, knotty and controversial; manifest and obvious to everyone but is deliberately ignored or avoided for discussion by everyone because it is a taboo or a potential source of trouble or sorrow or embarrassment.

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The biggest questions among President Bola Tinubu’s family and friends should be: Why again? And who was the enemy within who procured the contentious “replacement certificate” for him? Those questions are very big, like an elephant, the biggest land animal the world has yet seen. Yet, it is possible for it to be present and remain unseen, particularly if the world is scared of the consequences of seeing it. It is ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ around the president. That is the definition of loyalty in imperial palaces. No one around Abuja is asking the right questions; no one in Abuja is offering the right answers because nobody wants to be quoted as saying the wrong things and losing influence in the royal court. No one is telling the president the truth that this Chicago certificate problem is a real problem. They are clapping for the naked king and abusing the critical bard. Why would a supposedly wise man fall twice at the same spot? The first time was when he contested and won the governorship of Lagos State, and now this – right in the centre of the world market.

 

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Tinubu spoke with so much confidence at Chatham House on December 5, 2022. He mocked his critics as he announced that he had collected a replacement copy of his degree certificate from the Chicago State University. An applause followed that announcement. But that university last Monday said on oath that Tinubu did not collect his degree certificate from the institution. So, where and how did our president get what he announced in London? After his technical escape from Gani Fawehinmi in 1999/2000, he was not expected to play games with certificates again. He said he had got the replacement certificate from the issuing authority, the school. But there is nothing on record showing that he travelled to the United States to personally collect the certificate from the university. The big man probably sent someone, and who could that be? And if the person faked the stuff without his knowledge, why did he do that to our president? Now, the whole world knows that what the president holds is not from the university; it is a counterfeit made by characters who would easily con Ali in ‘Ali and the Angel.’

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Atiku Versus Tinubu And Nigeria At 63

Everyone around the president is saying the same thing: how a certificate is procured does not matter. They endorse what they themselves won’t accept from anyone. No one among the president’s men is seeing the big elephant in the Villa.

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People who deceive kings don’t speak to problems; they avoid them. Why fake a certificate you supposedly earned? That is a question we are asking on this side which Tinubu’s men dare not ask. A friend who said she was sure Tinubu schooled at the Chicago State University asked the question, sighed and said it was “deeply puzzling.” I can’t understand it either. You claimed that you were in that school and the university swore that you were their student. The university claimed that you applied to the school for a certificate. You did not go pick that copy up but when it was time to submit one to INEC, you went to a fake certificate website and printed one! Who did that to you? Even then you had other options; our law does not make having a university degree mandatory for eligibility for elective positions, including the presidential post. All you needed was “educated up to school certificate or its equivalent.” We may not have ever seen your O’ Level results/certificate but we saw a copy of an A’ Level certificate among the many documents released by Chicago State University to Atiku Abubakar last week Monday. The certificate with number 28705 for November/December 1970 bears your name: Bola A. Tinubu with Physics, Chemistry and Biology recorded for you and it says you passed the three subjects. Why did you not simply submit that Cambridge A’ Level certificate to INEC and avoid this Chicago certificate wahala completely? It is puzzling. I am sure the people around the president are humming these questions but they are afraid to ask him. It is political and financial suicide to tell the king that his nose is mucky.

No one is telling the president that the present issue is not whether or not he schooled in Chicago State University and graduated. No one has told him that the issue is that he submitted to INEC a certificate that was not produced by the authority that had the legal authority to produce it. The raging issue is not about what qualified him for the election; it is about what disqualified him. I read some persons of knowledge arguing that anyone could print a certificate as long as he earned the qualification. The ones I argued with, I told them that would be a criminal offence under our laws. One of them told me I was wrong. He likened my argument to someone being accused of stealing their own property. And I found that funny too and told him so. I told him he could be found guilty of theft of a property even if he was the owner. I told him to ask lawyers and ask the Supreme Court.

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: The North And Tinubu’s Appointments

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Our constitution and the Electoral Act say anyone who has ever submitted a forged certificate to the electoral commission is disqualified from all elective positions in Nigeria. And, our Supreme Court has said ‘certificate’ goes beyond educational certificates. A document is deemed forged when the maker is not the authority statutorily empowered to make it, or it contains falsely made or procured content. The Black’s Law Dictionary defines ‘forge’ as “to fabricate, construct, or prepare one thing in imitation of another thing…to counterfeit or make falsely.” And counterfeit means “to forge; to copy or imitate, without authority or right, and with a view to deceive or defraud, by passing the copy or thing forged for that which is original or genuine.” ‘Forgery’, according to the dictionary, is “falsely making or materially altering, with intent to defraud, any writing which, if genuine, might apparently be of legal efficacy or the foundation of a legal liability.” Our criminal laws adequately capture these definitions in their provisions against the crime of forgery. In Chicago’s United States, what the courts have said there are not different from what our law says here. In the case of Moskal vs United States (1990), the Supreme Court held that a “falsely made” document includes a document which is genuinely what it purports to be, but which contains information that the maker knows to be false, or even information that the maker does not know to be false but that someone who causes him to insert it knows to be false. The certificate which our president submitted to INEC contains signatures of persons who were not where the document says they were when it was made. The document is dated 1979 but Tinubu did not claim losing the original certificate in 1979 so the replacement could not have been made in 1979. The people who signed it held no position in that university in 1979 but the document says they did. The legal authority that should issue it says it never did.

‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ is an old story we’ve read in adaptation. In some places, the story says: ‘The King is Naked.’ While something tells me Tinubu may not have personally ordered that a certificate be downloaded and printed for him from the Internet, I am, however, shocked that neither he nor any of his famed smart boys saw the obvious errors on the face of the document before it became a snake in the bed of power. The man may have mismanaged himself in the past but with that document, his present managers have done him “irreparable damage.” If he had real friends around him and they saw what he held, he wouldn’t be caught wearing magnificent nakedness as his royal robe. I know you’ve heard or read ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’; it is the cultural equivalent of Tinubu’s new certificate and the consequences of its creation. The story is of an emperor who conned himself into nakedness and danced nude through the length and breadth of his empire. I give the credit of the lore to Danish folklorist, Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote the original story, and of the borrowed paragraphs to Jean Hersholt who rendered its translation in English so that you and I could benefit from its lessons. It is the story of an emperor who loved great clothes and would give anything to have the latest in town. The emperor in the story loved dresses and coveted being celebrated as the greatest strategist in town. One day, the smart emperor received two swindlers as guests. They told him they were weavers of the finest fabrics anyone could get. More importantly, they told the emperor, in the presence of his people, that the cloth they would make for him would be invisible to any one among the people, especially his ministers, who was a fool and too stupid to hold a public office. The emperor loved that. “Those would be just the clothes for me. If I wore them I would be able to discover which men in my empire are unfit for their posts. And I could tell the wise men from the fools.”

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Judges And The Future Of Elections

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The emperor paid the two swindlers a large sum of money to start work at once. The ‘weavers’ set up two looms and pretended to weave, though there was nothing on the looms. The whole town knew about the cloth’s peculiar power, and all were impatient to find out how stupid their neighbors were. The people trooped there, saw nothing but praised what they saw. Then the Emperor himself came out and went to his miracle workers. The dress was ready, the emperor saw nothing but because he mustn’t be said to be stupid, he said what he saw was magnificent. The conmen dressed him up in fakery. “His Majesty looks great,” he got praised by everyone around for the beauty of the nothing he was putting on. That was how the emperor was clothed in nakedness and led in a procession round the town. Then the voice of a little boy rang out in the market square: “But he hasn’t got anything on.” One person whispered to another what the child had said, “He hasn’t anything on. A child says he hasn’t anything on.”

“But he hasn’t got anything on!” the whole town cried out at last.

The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he still decreed that “this procession has got to go on.” And the emperor walked more proudly than ever round the town, in utter nudity.

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The king is naked. If you are truly his friend, tell him.

 

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NAS Offers Free Medical Services To Over 800 Residents In Imo Community

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National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) has provided free medical services to more than 800 residents of the Orogwe community in the Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State as part of the association’s humanitarian service.

The medical mission, held at the National Primary Healthcare Centre, was part of the association’s 49th National Konverge and Annual General Meeting in Owerri.

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The event offered diagnosis, treatment, and essential medications to hundreds of community members, many of whom had been unable to access healthcare due to financial hardship.

NAS Cap’n, Dr Joseph Oteri, said the initiative was part of the confraternity’s broader vision to support vulnerable communities and bring healthcare directly to those most in need.

“This programme targets those who ordinarily cannot afford basic healthcare, especially treatment for non-communicable diseases,” Oteri said.

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READ ALSO: Seadogs Champions Social Justice Through Inaugural Art Exhibition In Owerri

“Today, we attended to a child with a serious condition. Thankfully, we had a paediatrician on the ground who stabilised her and referred her to the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri. We’ve also identified a few cases that will require surgery, and we plan to support their hospital bills.”

He emphasised that NAS, formed in 1952 by seven young idealists including Imo-born Ralph Opara, has evolved into a formidable force for social advocacy, committed to humanitarian and civic interventions.

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Dispelling common misconceptions about the association, Oteri said: “We are not a cult group. We exist to protect the downtrodden and drive positive societal change.”

The association’s Chief Programme Officer, Chief Bart Akelemor, echoed this commitment, stressing that the NAS legacy is one of access, equity, and community service.

“Our mission is to promote a just society where citizens can access resources such as healthcare, education, and employment,” Akelemor said.

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READ ALSO: Seadogs Want FG Declares State Of Emergency On Kidnapping As Insecurity Worsens Nationwide

“With Nigeria’s growing population and the acute shortage of doctors and functioning medical facilities in rural areas, bringing this medical outreach to Orogwe is both timely and necessary.”

According to him, 41 volunteer doctors, drawn from across Nigeria and the diaspora, participated in the programme, attending to hundreds of patients with ailments ranging from malaria and hypertension to vision and dental issues.

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One of the beneficiaries, Mrs Chizoba Igwe, who received treatment for malaria, described the initiative as a “life-saving intervention.”

With the way things are in the country now, I couldn’t afford hospital bills or medication,” she said.

“This free treatment is a big relief. Many people here share the same feeling.”

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READ ALSO: Seadogs Pyrates Provide Free Medical Services To Benin Residents

Another resident, Mrs Mmesoma Njoku, received medicated glasses after undergoing an eye test.

“I’ve been struggling with my sight for a while, but couldn’t go to the hospital because of money. Today, I not only got tested, but they gave me glasses that now help me read tiny print. I am truly grateful,” she said.

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NAS Medical Pyrate, Dr Chiazor Odoemene, confirmed that over 800 residents were treated during the outreach, with critical cases referred to public hospitals for further management.

Beyond healthcare, the association also launched an arts exhibition aimed at promoting awareness around good governance, security, poverty alleviation, and Nigeria’s path to a more prosperous future.

The medical outreach has been lauded as a meaningful complement to the efforts of the Imo State Government in improving healthcare access and delivery, particularly in underserved areas.

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2027: Otuaro Urges N’Delta Youth To Resist Politicians’ Ploy To Destabilise Region

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Dr. Dennis Otuaro

The Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr Dennis Otuaro, has warned ex-agitators in the Niger Delta to resist being manipulated by desperate politicians plotting to destabilise peace in the Niger Delta, ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Speaking during the closing ceremony of a three-day strategic Leadership, Alternative Dispute Resolution, and Mediation training organised by the PAP in collaboration with the Nigerian Army Resource Centre, Abuja, Otuaro expressed concern over the recent rise in politically-charged rhetoric and some politicians’ coordinated attempt to pit ex-agitators and beneficiaries of the programme against the Federal Government.

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In a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Media, Mr Igoniko Oduma, on Sunday, he added that such moves were “reckless and unnecessary,” especially in light of President Bola Tinubu’s demonstrable commitment to the region.

READ ALSO:Otuaro Lauds President Yar’Adua For Establishing Presidential Amnesty Programme

There is no basis for anyone to cause destabilisation. We can all see the commitment of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, and the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, to the Presidential Amnesty Programme. Ex-agitators and beneficiaries in general should not be deceived and distracted by some politicians,” Otuaro told the ex-agitators and stakeholders.

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He cautioned that any calls for confrontation or disaffection at this time were “not only misplaced but also harmful to the gains we have recorded,” urging stakeholders to focus on peace, stability, and progress in the region.

According to Otuaro, the Tinubu administration has backed its support with tangible action.

Be assured that nobody will do it better than President Tinubu. As Niger Delta people, we have to thank the President for his genuine love for the Presidential Amnesty Programme and our region as a whole.

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READ ALSO:Group Urges Public To Disregard Reports Of Rift Between Otuaro And King Ateke

“The President has expanded the budget of the programme, allowing us to reach more beneficiaries and strengthen our reintegration and rehabilitation initiatives,” he stated.

He also pointed out that the inclusion of Niger Delta citizens in key federal positions was further evidence of Tinubu’s goodwill.

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Furthermore, Niger Deltans have been appointed to strategic positions in key ministries and agencies. This level of inclusion is unprecedented and deserves acknowledgement. All we need to do is to be united for the President,” Otuaro declared.

The PAP boss, who presented certificates to participants of the training and later hosted them at a reception at the PAP headquarters, reiterated his commitment to sustaining peace and building human capital in the region.

He further called on traditional rulers, community leaders, and other stakeholders to keep sensitising the youth to reject political manipulation, stating that “Lasting progress can only be achieved through cooperation, not conflict.”

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Afenifere Hails UN For Declaring July 7 World Amotekun Day

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The Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, on Sunday, commended the United Nations following its declaration of July 7 of every year as “World Amotekun Day.”

Afenifere’s position was contained in a statement released by its national publicity secretary, Jare Ajayi, in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

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It would be recalled that Amotekun’s formal recognition by the UN was made public last week by the President of the World Peace, Ambassador Peer Stafsen, while presenting the certificate of affiliation to the Commandant of the Ondo State Amotekun Corps, Adetunji Adeleye, in Akure, the state capital.

Represented by the Director of Information and Communications of the association, Ambassador Markwili Mgbara, Stafsen said the recognition was due to the activities of Amotekun corps in “promoting safety and protecting lives and property across Nigeria’s South-West region.”

The affiliation certificate was issued under the auspices of the United Nations Economic and Social Council and the International Association of World Peace Advocacy.

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READ ALSO:Osun Amotekun Arrest Three Over ₦4.5m Steel Theft, Others For Burglary

Afenifere’s statement said the recognition of Amotekun by the UN was unprecedented in this part of the globe.

“Amotekun’s invitation to attend meetings of the body’s affiliates on security and human rights is a big morale booster.

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“It is also a testament that those who brought it about and have been sustaining it were exemplary, as further attested to by some states in Nigeria who have shown interest in replicating the concept in their respective areas.

“The World Peace is part of the global body, the UN. Ondo State is significant on the issue of Amotekun as its former Governor, late Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), was pivotal in the establishment of the corps.

READ ALSO: Amotekun Arrests Suspected Drug Kingpin In Ogun

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With this recognition, the South-West Security Network (Amotekun) will now be officially attending the United Nations’ annual general meeting starting with the one coming up in New York, United States of America, on September 22, 2025, which will mark the 80th anniversary of the global body,” the statement partly read.

Afenifere said the certification of the security outfit confirmed the affiliation of the Ondo State Amotekun Corps as a trained security unit recognised by the UN.

Ajayi also lauded the late former Governor Akeredolu, who, along with his fellow governors in the South-West, then were steadfast in ensuring that the security outfit took off and was sustained, in spite of the obstacles placed on its ways in various guises.

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Amotekun was launched on January 9, 2020, in Ibadan, Oyo State, by the governors of the South West, i.e. Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo States.

READ ALSO:My Wife Arrested Me With Amotekun ‘For Owing Bank N500,000’ —Husband

The establishment of the security outfit emanated from the regional security summit that took place in Ibadan in June 2019 under the auspices of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria Commission,” Ajayi stated.

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Afenifere’s spokesperson submitted that the formal invitation to attend annual security meeting is a clear indication that the establishment of the outfit was a very good step to take.

He recalled that Amotekun, in its early formation, faced a lot of avoidable challenges, especially from the Federal Government then led by the late President Muhammadu Buhari.

READ ALSO:Protest In Osun Over Alleged Amotekun’s Arrest, Detention Of Community Chiefs

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Ajayi praised the governors in the region for not succumbing to intimidation then.

In his words, “Their not succumbing to intimidation has helped greatly in checking crimes in the region and in reducing the menace of armed bandits, including unscrupulous Fulani herders who are making going to farms perilous.”

The national publicity secretary then called on the governments of the southwestern states to leverage on the latest international recognition.

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We seize this opportunity to also call for an expeditious action on the establishment of state police and the provision of all that is needed to ensure that crime and banditry are reduced to the barest minimum,” he added.

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