Much ado about certificates in politics

When a venerated elder warned me to steer clear of politics in Nigeria, I reminded him that insouciance could lead to political halitosis. Wherever I go, Nigeria is in me. How could those not responsible for my toothpaste ask me to stop commenting on Nigerian issues?

Come to think of it, they could be right. Anyone who has rejected the paradise that Muhammadu Buhari built but hardly stays long enough to enjoy, in the perilous hell of less successful lands should stop heckling those enjoying the heaven here. Just because people remit a few dollars to relatives at home does not grant them the right to keep poking their noses into what happens in Nigeria. The Naira doesn’t give a damn; it continues its free fall.

The few émigrés who have swapped the mouth-watering perks and privileges associated with their professional pedigrees at home for servitude outside should just shut up. We know they hardly get jobs in their fields; that they’re left with menial jobs like washing dead bodies, driving taxis, cutting grass and sweeping streets to keep up with the certainty of taxes and subsistence bills.

These abroadians boast about how they could travel on well-paved roads without the fear of being robbed or kidnapped; how electricity hardly blinks, how the taps run, and the apologies when public transportation is one minute late. Rather than quietly enjoy their paradise, they are subsumed in Nigerian stories of kidnapping, ritual killing, power cuts and long fuel queues. Of course, they hardly share stories of the indignity of being treated as secondclass citizens or blatant racism.

Nigerians at home know that their political leaders are not saints. Thankfully, they do not expect to be governed by angels – not even in heaven. Nigerians at home are no saints too. Whenever a million is stolen by a kleptocrat; a few hundreds drop into their hands and it helps. This is why the National Assembly should enact a law banning those outside Nigeria from criticising Nigeria.

The unwarranted debate over the academic qualification of known politicians is particularly unnerving. Why are virtual citizens more concerned about who runs Nigeria than actual ones when it would not directly affect them? It is a result of perceived globalisation of political standards.

In other climes, the possibility of dodgy candidates making it into elective office is usually very slim. Parties take pains to vet their candidates before unleashing them on the electorate. At any point before the polls, dodgy candidates are dropped faster than hot coals. Opposition parties are scared of the liability of egregious candidates. Such candidates have their sentences in political Siberia where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Ask me who vetted Muhammadu Buhari’s certificates before the 2015 elections. He filled forms at the party and INEC levels and supported his forms with sworn affidavit. It would not have happened in a civilised society. That his basic credentials are missing has not prevented Buhari from getting two terms.

Here comes his

Abubakar

big-time

successor wannabes. Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC and his much younger placeholder running mate Kabiru Ibrahim Masari proudly claim not to have verifiable certificates. Tinubu is not a nymph to Nigerian politics. He has served as a senator of the Federal Republic, two-term governor of Lagos and known godfather of South West politics.

For each of Tinubu’s ‘elected’ positions, he was required by law to provide proof of a minimum of high school certificate. Today, he is not so sure of having seen the four walls of a classroom before he found himself studying accountancy and winning academic laurels at a Chicago university. Wonders never end.

Masari, his running mate and a younger politician is presumably more sentient than his principal. But even he is a victim of circumstance. While moving homes in Abuja, he lost his school certificates. The first set of supposedly educated but uncertificated politicians are poised to rule over the academicians making excuses for them.

Atiku

remembers

going to school after the post-colonial regime wrestled him from his father. He has pictures to show that he did. He was an officer in the Nigerian Customs Service who presented himself as a gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party and won. From there, Olusegun Obasanjo picked him as a running mate and together they served two terms. Atiku has just secured the ticket of his party to run for president. He has picked a sitting governor, Ifeanyichukwu Arthur Okowa, as his running mate.

Snag is, Atiku’s certificates are missing and Okowa’s credentials are missing. Apparently, there’s a UFO flying off with the certificates of Nigerian politicians.

Ironically, in 1999, when this democratic dispensation began, Nigerians were more conscientious than they are now. As Salisu Buhari would recall, they were unbending about the image of their politicians. Young Buhari battled Abubakar, a member of the Yar’adua clan in a keenly contested election for the speakership of the House of Representatives and won.

Although in reality, he had only a secondary school certificate, he conducted the affairs of the Green Chamber with panache until an affidavit he deposed to about his credentials led to his downfall. Buhari’s claim to have graduated from the University of Toronto shot him down from political office. He lost his seat, was sentenced to jail, later pardoned but has kept off politics.

As things stand, this generation must seek Salisu Buhari and apologise to him, return him to his chair at the House and pay him his entitlements. Since it is apparent that perjury is not an offence, it should be expunged from our statute books. We cannot afford to be governed by people without dodgy dossiers. Anybody who has served or is serving time for perjury should have his or her sentences commuted before President Buhari leaves office. If they have lost privileges, it should be restored to them with full honours.

This is one good way of silencing those holier-than-thou virtual citizens from trying to torpedo the inordinate ambitions of the dubious characters now poised to hold the reins of power being maverick camels that have passed through the eye of the needle of public scrutiny.

Their strident supporters have been telling us that honesty is not required to rebuild Nigeria nor are academic papers. They are telling us that there is nothing wrong in a little lie here and there and that perjury and senility should not prevent candidates from running for elective office.

They have a precedent. The current occupant of the highest position in the land, Muhammadu Buhari constantly reminds us how he has done his best for the country. Nobody doubts that assertion – we are privileged not to have witnessed his worst. We cannot imagine what his worst could have been. Buhari has turned senility into a virtue by truthfully stating that he is not aware of his responsibilities. The world must be looking at us as a very unique specie of Homo sapiens. Sorry, they don’t care; they are too busy playing roulette with Russia and Ukraine.

In other climes, the possibility of dodgy candidates making it into elective office is usually very slim. Parties take pains to vet their candidates before unleashing them on the electorate. At any point before the polls, dodgy candidates are dropped faster than hot coals.