Of missing certificates and lost identities, By Suyi Ayodele

The modern day replicas of Oba Àdó are the current crop of Nigerian politicians, whose common denominator is their absolute lack of integrity. From bottom to top, or to borrow General Muhammadu Buhari’s edition of the saying: “from top to bottom”, there is no one among them that one can vouch for when it comes to fidelity. And like their forebear, Oba Àdó, the Nigerian politicians of this era carry on without shame. Again, they have on their payroll a gang of boisterous supporters who are ready to drown any scrutiny of the integrity of their principals in the cacophony of their noisy defence. Nigerians have been taken for granted for years by the infelicitous political class because among the masses are a set of people who are ready to call the two-horned devils the politicians are the Arch-Angels of God! Little wonder that no matter the validity of the charges against their claim to decency, an average politician here does not give a damn. Their supporters put up all sorts of arguments in their defence. They make references to equally despicable politicians of other regions and conclude that their principals are a bit better. The mob reasoning cuts across every class: the illiterate to the very cosmopolitan!
What we are witnessing now, especially with the presidential candidates and their running mates, is akin to the 1983 political slogan of “omo wa ni, e je o se” (he is our son, let him do it) of the defunct National Party of Nigeria, NPN, in the old Oyo State. It does not matter the baggage the candidate carries; the new doctrine is: “our own is our own”. An elderly female politician told me days back that “omo eni ki se idi bebere ka fi ileke si idi omo elomiran” (no matter how badly shaped your daughter’s waist is, you don’t tie beads round another person’s child’s waist). That is our current reasoning. It does not matter any longer to us the aesthetic values the waist beads are expected to add. We care less if the waist beads fit into the crooked waist of the wearer or not. What matters is the region and ethnicity of the candidate.
Saturday Tribune’s lead story of July 2, 2022 has this kicker: “More presidential, VP candidates claim missing certificates”. Two riders: “How we lost our certificates- PDP’s Okowa, YPP’s Ado Ibrahim” and “Names on our certificates not our present names – Atiku, Yabagi”, follow. Reading through the story took me back to my literature class at the Obafemi Awolowo University. The entire story, as written by Taiwo Amodu of Tribune’s Politics Desk, is a rehash of Athol Fugard’s play: ‘Sizwe Banzi is dead’. Every literary work, we were told, must have the principle of verisimilitude (true to life). Now, I know that such is not applicable only to literary texts. ‘Sizwe Banzi is dead’ plays up the universal concept of identity, especially in the then apartheid South Africa.
In our very presence, the 2023 presidential candidates and their vices (no mischief intended here, please), have re-enacted Athol Fugard’s play. Beginning with the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there is no single shred of evidence to show who is the person wearing Tinubu’s mask. His case is a very peculiar one. It is peculiar in the sense that all the issues interrogating his academic qualifications are not new; they did not come up today. As much as one will want to accept the claim that Tinubu lost all his credentials during the time he went on exile between 1994 and 1998, I find it extremely absurd that till now, the former Lagos State governor has not deemed it fit to get the schools he claimed to have attended to issue him new certificates or get a court of law to certify the carbon copies of his former certificates as Certified True Copies, CTCs. How his supporters find it convenient that the affidavit he deposed to is sufficient enough baffles me. How they do not want us to interrogate the primary and secondary schools he attended is a shock. How they easily forget that Tinubu spent years in court fighting the late fiery lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi, over the same matter is what I cannot understand. Why no one among Tinubu’s school and classmates in his primary and secondary schools, and the two universities he claimed to have attended has not been able to come out and say: “I knew this guy in school, or this guy was in my class years back” is a mystery.
And as if that is not enough, Tinubu’s VP candidate, Kabiru Masari, also came up with the claims that he lost all his credentials while in transit between Abuja and Kaduna in January, 2021. The “placeholder” Masari, in an affidaviten titled ‘Sworn affidavit for loss of some original documents’, claimed that he lost his Teachers’ Grade 2 certificate from Katsina Teachers’ College and First Leaving Primary School Certificate issued by Masari Primary School, Katsina State (1972- 78). The only difference is that he, unlike his principal, could name the schools he attended. But Masari could have done better than the affidavit. He could have used the time he spent swearing an affidavit to dash to Katsina and have his schools issue him new certificates or get the carbon copies certified. That is what an aspiring political leader who has respect for the people he intends to lead should have done.
The most intriguing of all the affidavits in town is that of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, aka, Siddiq Abubakar. Like Tinubu, Atiku is also loudly silent about the primary school he attended. He presented to INEC a General Certificate of Education, GCE, and a Master’s degree certificate. While his Master’s certificate bears the name Atiku Abubakar, his GCE bears Siddiq Abubakar. He then proceeded to attach to his INEC form an affidavit that he changed his name from Siddiq Abubakar to Atiku Abubakar in 1965. Lawyers and other legal experts may not have issues with the change of name and identity. I am also tempted not to have any issue with that but for some moral reasons.
Atiku Abubakar’s running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa, also joined the league of candidates relying on affidavits as substitutes to their certificates. That Okowa, who, since this political dispensation began in 1999 served as a two-term commissioner, Secretary to the State Government, SSG, a senator, and two-term governor of Delta State, will be swearing to an affidavit of loss of certificates is embarrassing and at the same time nauseating. This is a pointer to his disdain for Nigerians. It does not matter if he named all the schools he attended. Decency, respect for the people and personal integrity dictate that he should get his “missing” certificates or get us CTCs in their replacement. His “That the original of the said certificate issued to me is now missing, lost and cannot be found” deposition is an insult to our collective sensibility. From Tinubu to Masari; from Atiku to Okowa; from Prince Abdul Malik Ado Ibrahim of the Young People’s Party, YPP, to Sani Yabagi of the Action Democratic Party, ADP, until they provide reasonable excuses for their missing credentials, Nigerians should take it that what is missing in them goes beyond certificate. They have not lost their certificates alone. They have equally lost their identities and integrity. Until they prove otherwise, we are justified to say that in our candidates, Sizwe Bansi is dead!