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OPINION: The Certificate Elephant In Abuja

Published

2 years ago

October 9, 2023

Editor

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.

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.

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.’

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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.

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.

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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.”

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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.

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

News

Oba Of Benin Suspends Palace Chiefs

Published

6 hours ago

August 28, 2025

Editor

The Oba of Benin, Ewuare II, has suspended two of his chiefs for falling for dereliction of duties.

This was contained in a statement signed by the Secretary to the Benin Traditional Council (BTC), Frank Irabor and made available to journalists in Benin City.

He said their suspension was as a result of their long absence from the palace, resulting in their failure to carry out their palace responsibilities.

The suspended persons are: Chief John Igiehon, the Izuwako of Benin and chief Aimiukpomonyako Oghogho (Ebengho), the Oyenmwensoba of Benin.

“The under-mentioned two (2) chiefs have been suspended from the Palace of the Oba of Benin.

“This is as a result of their long absence from the Palace, resulting in their failure to carry out their Palace responsibilities.

“The public is advised to be wary of unscrupulous chiefs that are no longer functioning in the Palace. His Royal Majesty has approved their _ Suspension and directed the public be duly informed.

“The names of the chiefs are: – ; 1. CHIEF JOHN IGIEHON, THE IZUWAKO OF BENIN and, _ 2 CHIEF AIMIUKPOMONYAKO OGHOGHO (EBENGHO), THE OYENMWENSOBA OF BENIN”, the statement said.

News

Lawyers Fault EFCC Statement, Say It’s Misleading

Published

7 hours ago

August 28, 2025

Editor

Some legal practitioners in Bauchi state have faulted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) official statement about their client on Wednesday, adding that it was erroneous, false and misleading.

It could be recalled that EFCC posted on its official Facebook handle that a Bauchi State High Court has cleared the commission to proceed with its investigation of a former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in Bauchi State, Hamza Koshe, and his company, Pentech Engineering Nigeria Ltd.

According to the EFCC statement, the commission said Justice Aliyu Baba, in a judgment delivered on July 30, 2025, dismissed an application by Koshe seeking to restrain the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission from probing him.

However, in a statement jointly signed and made available to newsmen in Bauchi on Thursday by Jibrin S. Jibrin Esq, M.M. Usman Esq, H.B. Pali Esq, Abbas Ibrahim Esq, I.G. Agwam Esq and Salome Audu Esq all counsel to Pentech Engineering Nigeria Ltd & Anor as well as Koshe insisted that the statement was misleading.

According to them, the EFCC owed the public the duty of relating only the truth of what the courts decided as regards the contract financing agreement in the issues their clients were parties.

“Our attention as the legal representatives of Pentech Engineering Nigeria Ltd & Alhaji Hamza Koshe in respect of suit No. BA/271/2024 has been drawn to the statement posted on the official page of the EFCC on Wednesday, where the Commission supposedly rendered an analysis of the judgement delivered by the High Court of Justice No. 4 Bauchi Presided by Justice Aliyu Usman on the 30th July 2025.

“Now against the background of the erroneous, false and misleading publication by the EFCC on the matter, we deem it necessary to set the records straight by stating what actually is the truth of the matter in terms of the enrolled judgment Order of the Court to which this press release is attached.

“It is proper to state as a fact that in an earlier judgement relating to the subject of this release, the verdict of the High Court of Justice No. 10 Bauchi presided by Justice M. M. Abubakar delivered on the 19th December, 2024 is to the effect that the Contract Financing Agreement the subject matter of the suit having been found to be valid and not contravening any law remains enforceable hence, Pentech Engineering Nigeria Ltd is accorded the applicable injunctive reliefs as regards the activities of the Commission.

“We state as a fact that the main question of law determined in Justice Aliyu Baba Usman’s judgment is to the effect that the Contract Financing Agreement the subject of the suit is valid.

“The EFCC failed to state in its statement in reference the fact that many parties and contractors concerned or involved in the Contract Financing Agreement in the issue have been invited by the Commission with virtually all of them responding, honoring its invitation on the matter and thereby discharging their legal obligation speak volumes of ‘the bidding of some’ which the publication seeks to achieve ab initio,” said the lawyers.

The counsel added that the mischief and deliberate misrepresentation in EFCC’s statement could be seen when not only did it make no mention of this fact but also created the impression that their clients went to Court to evade investigation on the matter.

They said that Koshe was a guest of the Commission having honored its invitation in September 2024 which he was released on administrative bail, the terms and conditions applicable to which he has been observing.

“It is also important to clarify as a fact that there is no truth at all in the Commission’s statement to the effect that our client sought a perpetual injunction of general nature against the Commission’s activities.

“The truth about the reliefs sought by our clients is as contained in the Court’s processes filed in the suit in reference.

“We challenge the Commission to provide evidence of where our client ever sought a perpetual injunction at large or of general nature against it or any other body duly established by law.

“We urge members of the public to disregard in its entirety EFCC’s statement on the subject and be guided in its stead by the facts as contained in the relevant court processes to which this release is attached,” he said.

News

Tricycle Riders Sentenced To Five Years Over WhatsApp Group Mobilising Protest Against Nigerian Gov

Published

7 hours ago

August 28, 2025

Editor

Borno State Governor Babagana Umara Zulum has been accused of being power-drunk following allegations that he ordered the arrest and conviction of two members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and tricycle operators for creating a WhatsApp group to mobilize a protest against his administration.

Crack police operatives carried out the arrests in Maiduguri before the scheduled End Bad Governance protest.

The two men, identified as Mohammed Bukar (alias Awana) and Ibrahim Mohammed (alias Babayo), were convicted on June 30, 2025, by Hon. Justice A.M. Ali and handed a five-year prison sentence.

Court documents with reference number BOHC/MG/CR/2150/CT10/2024 revealed that the men were accused of creating a WhatsApp group called “Zanga Zanga Group”—translated as Protest Group—to mobilize Keke Napep (tricycle) operators for a planned demonstration against the Borno State Government.

Mohammed Bukar and Ibrahim Mohammed were the 6th and 7th defendants in the case in which Governor Zulum accused them of using videos on the WhatsApp group to instigate Keke Napep (tricycle) operators in Borno State to join the protest against the government.

They were also accused of producing videos in Kanuri and Hausa languages, urging tricycle riders to come out en masse, declaring “no going back” on the planned protest against the Borno State Government.

On June 30, 2025, Hon. Justice A.M. Ali sentenced the duo to five years’ imprisonment for allegedly planning the protest on WhatsApp.

Meanwhile, the seven defendants were charged with two counts: Count 1. That the defendants conspired to form a group named Zanga Zanga group (or protest group) on WhatsApp social media platform wherein they agreed to take up arms, to wit; guns, knives, bows and arrows and all forms of dangerous weapon against the Government thereby committing an offence contrary to Sections 60 and punishable under Section 79 of the Penal Code Laws of Borno State 2023.

Count 2. That the defendants formed a group named Zanga Zanga group (or. protest group) on WhatsApp social media platform and agreed to take up arms, to wit; guns, knives, bows and arrows and all forms of dangerous weapon against the Government thereby committing an offence punishable under Section 79 of the Penal Code Laws of Borno State 2023 All the defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against them at their arraignment on April 11, 2024. The prosecution called four witnesses to prove their case.

However, all defendants pleaded not guilty when arraigned on April 11, 2024.

The prosecution called four witnesses, including Sgt. Isa Abubakar, an investigating police officer attached to the Crime Squad of the Nigerian Police, Borno State Command.

Sgt. Abubakar testified that on July 21, 2024, the 6th defendant used one of the videos as his WhatsApp status to mobilize tricycle riders for the End Bad Governance protest.

He added that the 6th and 7th defendants also made another video in Hausa, saying, “Allah Yaisa Zulum two Billion Namu,” roughly translating to “May God punish Zulum for our two billion.”

He further testified that he downloaded the videos and arrested the two suspects on July 23, 2024, before handing them over to the Crime Squad office in Maiduguri.

Justice Ali said, “I have considered the pleas for leniency made by each of the convicts and the pleas made on their behalf by their counsel. The 5th convict is 17 years old, the 2nd convict is 14 years old, and the 3rd convict is 15 years old.

“The 5th, 2nd, and 3rd convicts are therefore young persons within the meaning of the Children and Young Persons Law of Borno State.

“It was held by the Apex court in the case of Aminu Tanko VS the State 2009 Legalpedia SC 61216 that where the sentence prescribed upon conviction in criminal charge is term of imprisonment then some extenuating factors, such as the age of the convict and whether he is a first offender can be taken into consideration in passing the sentence.

“It is in this regard that, on the 1st count charge, I sentence the 5th, 2nd, and 3rd defendants to community service specifically washing the toilets of General Hospital Maiduguri, for 3 months. Make an order that they be given 20 strokes of the cane each.

“On the 2nd count charge, the 5th, 2nd, and 3rd convicts are sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment. The 2nd and 3rd convicts are to be held at the children’s remand home, while the 5th defendant is to be remanded at the Maiduguri correctional centre. The period of imprisonment should commence today.”

“Regarding the first convict, who is also a young man, he is hereby sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment. The first convict is sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment. The 6th convict is sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment. The 7th convict is sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment. All sentences should commence today, the 30/6/2025,” Justice Ali added.

Earlier, SaharaReporters reported that the families of two commercial tricycle operators had accused the state government, led by Governor Babagana Zulum, of ordering their arrest and prolonged detention after they allegedly planned a peaceful protest over the alleged mismanagement of funds contributed by riders.

The detained operators, identified as Muhammed Bukar and Ibrahim Muhammed—both members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)—were arrested by the Police Crack Squad on the alleged orders of Borno State Commissioner for Youth and Sports Development, Saina Buba.

According to relatives, the riders were detained for three months and two weeks at a police facility before spending an additional two months in prison custody while facing trial.

At the centre of the dispute is a daily N100 ticket fee collected from tricycle operators, supposedly serving as insurance to provide financial support to any operator facing emergencies.

However, the riders alleged that officials managing the fund embezzled the money and failed to assist operators in need, prompting plans for the protest before their arrest.