As Nigerians were grappling with the controversies surrounding President Bola Tinubu’s Chicago State University (CSU) academic documents and his 1970 secondary school certificate result from a non-existent Government College, Lagos, the All Progressives Congress (APC) announced that there were some anomalies in the certificates of Messrs Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) respectively.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) had questioned the name ‘Sadiq Abubakar’ in Atiku’s West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) as against his other credentials.
Addressing the issue, Atiku who was the presidential candidate of the PDP in the February 25 election explained that he used Sadiq as his first name in the WASCE conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) but subsequently changed to the present one he bears.
“The APC busybodies have been bombarding me with allegations of forgery against my Principal, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar (GCON), which I immediately forwarded to him and here is his copious response: “Yes I used Sadiq Abubakar to sit for my WAEC and after passing my exams I went to swear an affidavit to say I am the same person as ATIKU Abubakar.
“I went to ABU as Atiku Abubakar and passed my Exams as Atiku Abubakar. Interviewed as Atiku Abubakar by the Federal Civil Service Commission and hired into the Customs Service as Atiku Abubakar. So where is forgery there?” – ATIKU ABUBAKAR
“Can the APC social media bullies forward the deluge of questions in circulation to their boss and get an instant and direct response…” wrote the director of strategic communications of the Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign, Mr Dele Momodu on his X handle @DeleMomodu.
Atiku went on to share throwback pictures of himself and his classmates.
Concerning Obi who was the LP presidential candidate in the election, the ‘discrepancy’ in his academic documents was spotted by the Lamidi Apapa-led faction of the party, which is sympathetic to Tinubu of the APC.
Spokesman for the faction dubbed ApLP (All Progressives Labour Party), Mr Abayomi Arabambi said on a television programme that he was part of the panel that screened Obi ahead of the party’s presidential primary in 2022.
He claimed that Obi’s academic certificate from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) bears a name different from what is on his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate.
Arabambi made the allegation in reaction to Obi’s press conference on the controversy over Tinubu’s CSU certificate.
Recall that Obi had at a press conference charged Tinubu to come clean about his true identity stressing that Nigerians and the international community deserve to know the true identity of the president.
He said CSU certificate controversy and Tinubu’s lingering identity question marks of the president have worsened Nigeria’s “less-than-glorious image internationally.”
Responding to Obi’s challenge, Arabambi said the LP presidential candidate is not as clean as a new pin.
“While we believed that Peter Obi has the right to express himself, he should be guided by the Nigerian constitution since ‘he who comes to equity must come with clean hands.’
“So something is fishy, and I want to say the name the school sent for mobilisation was not what was written on his NYSC certificate, and he knows that.
“This destination that he is going, I don’t know what he wants to achieve. We have before the Supreme Court his petition, and the pleadings are not there. You are now calling out someone to come and reveal his true identity.
“For us, we don’t know the true identity of Peter Obi even in the Labour Party because everything was shrouded in secrecy at that time between him and Abure in Asaba.
“You know we were rushing because we had just a day to do our presidential primary, and that was why he was able to get away with it, but we have it on record that Obi’s name on his NYSC certificate and the one on his University of Nigeria, Nsukka certificate are different,” Arabambi stated without disclosing the two different names on the documents.
Reacting to Arabambi’s claims, the director general of LP’s presidential campaign council, Mr Akin Osuntokun said Obi’s details are in the public domain for verification.
He wondered where “people who are not even in the party” had the opportunity to screen Obi before the last election.
“You know the kind of things they say. The man who is saying all these things has no consequence. When did Peter Obi join the Labour Party and where was he then? They are just making a nuisance out of themselves,” Osuntokun told Premium Times in an interview.
