Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Dr. Chidi Amuta, distinguished scholar of literature, political economy, sociology and national development, is Executive Editor of USAfrica, since 1993
I am endlessly enthralled by a recent viral social media story. A bright young man in Kenya became enamored of the legal profession by being in the vicinity of a law office and attending courts regularly to observe the ways of lawyers and judges. So, he assumed himself a lawyer and went on to attract and defend clients in court. He won a total of 26 cases before his ruse was unfolded by the government. The government prosecuted him for impersonation and false presentation. He defeated the government in court as well. I would not know what became of him afterwards. But this real life story literally shreds our worship
Of paper qualifications over practical delivery of outcomes.
The endless travails of president Tinubu over phantom paper certificates somehow rings of this tale.
Nigerian politicians and public loud mouths are at it again. In the run up to the January elections, they are again waxing lyrical on the moribund issue of President Tinubu’s paper qualifications for the job he is holding. It’s the familiar issues: the man has no primary school , no secondary certificate , doubtful undergraduate records. This moribund biographical archeology goes further to more laughable depths. The man cannot point at his real mother, father or show on the map where his village is located. Thank God, no one has accused Mr. Tinubu of not being a Nigerian citizen . The constitution is gracious enough to grant the right to contest elections and rule to all proven Nigerian citizens.
The usual line up of habitual traducers and political nay sayers are on the beat: Bode George, Omoyele Sowore, Atiku Abubakar, the occasional Peter Obi and my Junior brother Chidi Odinkalu have been joined by myriad other apprentice voices.
The chorus is familiar. Tinubu is unfit to stand the next election because he does not have a primary or secondary school certification.
I beg to differ from these other patriotic voices. First I am bored of the redundant objection. Tinubu is ending his first term as president. He had not failed a math or spelling test yet. He has occupied the office with sagacity and self
assurance for almost four years now. Prior to now, he had been a Senator and a two term governor of Lagos State, Nigeria’s most challenging state in terms of population and socio economic problems.
The same reservations were raised up to the apex of the judicial process by some of our most sagacious legal experts. The man survived all these guerilla attacks.
Those currently reopening the Tinubu certificate epic are simply lazy or jobless. Why can’t they find issues from Tinubu’s stewardship as president to wrestle him on? There are too many other deficiencies to convert into political capital.
My contrntion is simple: a man who has occupied this litany of public offices cannot be said to be unqualified simply because he cannot show his school certificates in public.
He has participated in countless budget sessions, read any number of speeches, attended countless meetings and conferences and participated in any number of sessions and made presentations in nearly every continent.
The people still insisting on Tinubu’s full identity are not altogether wrong. It is bad for a nation of over 230 million to be ruled by someone without credible biography or verifiable paper qualifications. We are a nation that worships education, credible family roots, origins, faith and track record. Those who seek to rule us should minimally be educated and have tracesble parentage
and work experience. That’s not too much to demand.
But where persons have slipped through the crevices of our porous legal basket to assume leadership positions with neither qualifications nor known origins, the moral burden shifts to the society and the systems that guards its leaderdhip
selection process. The moral burden is also on the individual pretender. A person who presents himself with fake certificates, fake schools attended, forged certificates, transcripts and records. That moral burden is offloaded at the doorstep of the society that descends to allow itself to be ruled by a fraud .
It all depends on the character of the society, its standards and the definition of political leadership it accepts. Our country is a land of endless possibilities and infinite combinations. People transform from roadside mechanics to pastors, from stark illiterates to don professorial toga, from ignorant housewives to philanthropists etc. Our politicians buy degrees and certificates, undergo microwave inductions and return to lecture us in shattered shameful diction.
Tinubu has occupied positions, discharged responsibilities despite his proven academic and identity deficiencies in Nigeria.
The job descriptions of public offices in Nigeria does not require any serious applications. It is all about the pomp and ceremony of state. Sirens that chase away people. Boring speeches written by unimaginative civil servants, routine memos asking for approval or not. Single word minutes of ‘approved’, ‘KIV’ or ‘Discuss’ etc.
In all of this, there is nothing requiring deep thinking, intellectual rigor or academic reflection . So in terms of the requirement of the job, nothing is wrong with Tinubu’s deficiency of paper certificates. Our philosopher kings have long died off and become extinct. Political thugs have chased people of knowledge into exile or remote classrooms
and taken centre stage.
Yet the constitution insists that those who want to rule us must meet certain educational qualifications. The political system is under strict obligation to ensure strict adherence to this requirement subject to the law. The obligation of individual aspirants to power to abide by the constitution ought to be incumbent.
When a candidate for office successfully overrides and vanquishes the constitution through legal abracadabra, the political expediency will have overridden constitutional imperative. The overriding dictum become crude politics over constitutionalism. As Tinubu recently told Cardinal Onaiyekan and the other Catholic clergy, “all is fair in politics as in war”. As it is, Tinubu’s brand of politics has overrun the system.
If the matter is Tinubu’s electability in 2027, Maybe it’s time to forget his Tinubu’s certificates and face his job approval record and rating. The 2027 election should really be a referendum on Tinubu as a public presence. Not about his multiple disappearing certificates.
