The Certificate Scandal and the Rising Trend ofSuicide By Reno Omokri

Article written by Reno Omokri. Please read on..I read the statement

by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on media and

publicity, Garba Shehu, saying that President Muhammadu Buhari is not

involved in any certificate scandal and I was rather surprised that a

professional like Garba, whom I know to be a polished media man, would

even have responded to that story from The Punch Newspaper in the

first place.





The response was unnecessary. As a Presidential spokesman, you do not

respond to every story. In fact, under President Obama, there was a

template in the White House which was that if multiple media

networks are not carrying a story then it is not worth responding to

it because by responding to a small story, you make it a big story.



You give it the attention that makes other news

houses interested in it and that is what Garba Shehu's statement did.



Now, to say that President Buhari does not have a certificate scandal

is an act of dishonesty and to quote Edmund Burke, Garba is being

economical with the truth.



The Presidency is being clever by half by saying that President

Muhammadu Buhari, like Dino Melaye, is not involved in a certificate

scandal.



That is patently dishonest. President Buhari DOES have a certificate scandal.



If the President does not have a certificate scandal, how come he

hired thirteen high priced Senior Advocates of Nigeria to defend him

in a case brought to compel him to provide the certificate or proof

that he has one, including one SAN, Kola Awodein, who gave a 'gift' of

₦500,000 to Justice Ademola, the judge handling the case against the

President, at a time the case was pending before him!



A man who has no certificate scandal will simply produce the original

certificate or if it is lost he will apply to the University of

Cambridge International Examinations for a Certified True Copy of his

results.



You do not need to defend the truth with 13 SANs. The truth will defend itself.



Now, do not get me wrong. I am not saying that Buhari has no GCE

Certificate. I do not know if he has or does not have a certificate.



What I know is that the story keeps changing.

We read that the Nigerian Army had his certificate until they denied.

Then we were told that the certificate was seized by the Babangida

administration when Buhari was overthrown in 1985. We have also read

that the certificate is with President Muhammadu Buhari's provincial

school in Katsina. Which is it? Your guess is as good as mine.



What I am saying is that except hiring thirteen SANs is part of his

strategy for fulfilling his campaign promise of employing three

million Nigerians in two years, it is safe to conclude that President

Muhammadu Buhari HAS a certificate scandal! A confirmed one.



On January 21, 2015, the West African Examinations Council, WAEC, even

intervened and said that they could assist in verifying the

certificate if only then candidate Buhari would officially request

them to.



On that date, WAEC's spokesman, Mr. Yusuf Ari said, "WAEC cannot take

any action except, the owner of the certificate asked us to do so. We

are an independent body, therefore, we cannot be partisan on this

issue."



Would it be far easier to just ask the relevant authorities to release

the documents as Mr.Ari said, than to hire thirteen SANs?



In fact, I wish the efforts by Dino Melaye's enemies in the All

Progressive Congress to verify his certificates can be applied to

verifying the certificate of another powerful man in the APC. We

should not treat Dino Melaye one way and President Muhammadu Buhari

another way.



If they think Dino Melaye is unfit to hold his Senatorial seat because

he did not graduate from university (which is untrue) then they should

apply their logic to all political office holders no matter how high

they are. If Dino must present his certificate then others must also

present their own too! What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the

gander!



For the avoidance of doubt, the minimum educational requirement to

contest a Senate seat is the equivalent of a West African Senior

School Certificate Examination. There is absolutely no doubt that Dino

Melaye has one.



Yet so much pressure was piled on him because of his Bachelor

certificate simply because he ruffled the 'cabal's' feathers.



If questionable certificates are the issue then it is not Dino we

should be looking at! There is somebody who has more questions about

his school certificate than Dino.



Why are we shining the spotlight on Dino and pandering to President

Muhammadu Buhari? Just as the Senate Summoned the Vice Chancellor of

Ahmadu Bello University to give evidence in this matter, the Senate

should likewise summon the representative of Cambridge International

Examinations to answer questions about President Muhammadu Buhari's

certificate!



In a nation in recession with two of the deadliest terror groups on

earth, our fixation is on the certificate of a Senator without

executive power! That is the problem with Nigeria's leadership.



Our current leaders cannot spend time planning the progress of this

nation, but they can devote razor like focus to planning the downfall

of real and perceived enemies even to the smallest and most ridiculous

detail!



And the fact that the spotlight on Dino Melaye's certificate is being

shone by elements within the APC is yet another example of how divided

that party is.



This is even as the recent contretemps between Malam Nasir El-Rufai

and some mandarins in the 'cabal' has shed more light on why the

Buhari administration has failed to deliver the goods it promised.

Never in the history of Nigeria have we ever had a government so

divided against itself.



The Nigerian Customs Service Versus Nigerian Senate, the Directorate

of State Security Versus the Economic Financial Crimes Commission,

Nasir El-Rufai Versus Chief of Staff and the Secretary to the

Government of the Federation, the Secretary to the Government of the

Federation Versus The Nigerian Senate, Aisha Buhari Versus the Cabal,

Asiwaju Bolaji Tinubu Versus John Oyegun, Abike Dabiri Versus Minister

of Foreign Affairs, Raji Fashola Versus Akinwunmi Ambode.



Yet you wonder why this government cannot deliver! If the grass

suffers when only two elephants fight, what do you think will happen

to the grass when all the elephants are fighting simultaneously? A

government that uses all its energies to fight itself will not have

any energy left to fight for you!



And to make matters worse, the Buhari administration and the APC keep

saying former President Jonathan ruined Nigeria for five years. Yet in

those five years you had affordable food, fuel, dollars and regular

salary at the federal level.



Moreover, Jonathan did not spend unspecified sums of money on his

health abroad neither did he write letters to the National Assembly

defending members of his cabinet caught red handed in corruption.



Perhaps Jonathan ruined Nigerian by reviving our previously moribund

railways and made it possible for you to travel by rail from Lagos to

Kano at a cost of ₦1500? Perhaps he ruined



Nigeria by building the ONLY standard gauge modern railway that makes

it possible for you to live in Kaduna and work in Abuja? In fact, I

am sure Jonathan ruined President Buhari's home state of Katsina, by

building the ONLY federal university in that state. If ruining is what

Jonathan did for five years, then what will you call what President

Buhari has done to Nigeria in the last two years?



It is now tickety-boo in the mind of the apparatchiks of this

administration to lay the blame for all their problems on Dr. Goodluck

Jonathan, but there is only one small problem.



In January 2015, then candidate Muhammadu Buhari released a campaign

ad with a picture of him that said and I quote "if anything goes

wrong, I will take responsibility and fix it.



THAT IS WHAT IT MEANS TO LEAD" (emphasis President Buhari's, not mine).



Going by the above words of President Muhammadu Buhari himself, we can

see quite clearly that judging him by his own standards, the only

possible verdict is that he has failed as a leader because two years

into his administration he has yet to to "take responsibility and fix

it" and is still blaming his predecessor.



By constantly blaming Dr. Goodluck Jonathan for the woes of his

government, President Buhari is saying that a man in retirement in

Otuoke has more influence over his administration than he as President

does.



The reality is that the penchant to blame the previous administration

shows that ex President Jonathan is more powerful in his absence from

power than incumbent President Buhari is with his presence in power.

Saying anything to get elected and then breaking the promises you made

after you are elected is deception and the worst form of corruption!



But in truth, what derailed the Buhari administration and the APC is

that they focused all their energies on destroying Goodluck Jonathan,

the PDP and the Transformation Agenda instead of concentrating on

building Muhammadu Buhari, the APC and the Change Agenda.

Leaders must realize that power is like fire.



You can only make progress with fire if you use it to light the way in

darkness. But if you use it to burn your enemy's house, after burning

his house, the wind will spread the fire to your own house. Good

leaders focus on making progress, bad leaders are fixated on revenge.

You cannot combine both. You must choose one or the other and

President Buhari made the wrong choice.



And the fixation of the Buhari administration on blaming Jonathan and

fighting its real and perceived enemies has meant that only minimal

attention is being given to the economy with the consequent effect

being that a man who inherited the third fastest growing economy in

the world from former President Jonathan has turned Nigeria into a

nation with the world's fourth worst performing currency!



The effect of President Buhari's mishandling of the economy has been

catastrophic on the lives of Nigerians.



Never in the history of Nigeria has suicide been so widespread as it

is today. There is so much despair in the land. We obviously need

permanent police presence around the Lagoon in Lagos. But my thinking

is that even if we police the lagoon, how many suicides go unreported

in cities, towns and villages across Nigeria?



And even in the Nigerian Police Force, there is a rising wave of

suicide amongst officers and men which has become so prevalent that

the police authorities themselves have been forced to take action, At

the beginning of the year, the Assistant Inspector General of Police

Zone 5, Abubakar Mohammed told newsmen that he had received a mandate

from the Inspector General of Police to intervene to stem the rising

trend of suicide within the force.



He said and I quote "the IGP has asked us to now go close to our

officers as well as the rank and file to know what their problems are

because the level of suicide within the police is getting higher.

Police officers are killing themselves without knowing what the

problems are".



So if those who are meant to prevent suicide have some of the highest

rates of suicide within their midst, what are we to do as a nation?



I am reminded at this time of Proverbs 29:2 'When the righteous are in

authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked bears rule, the

people mourn.'



This is not about PDP or APC. If doctors and business men and women

are being moved to suicide, what about the increasing number of

unemployed? I call on churches to shift focus from miracles and

financial breakthroughs to extending love to the broken, lonely,

unemployed and abandoned in their communities. Sell your founders

private plane and use the money to feed thousands as Jesus fed

thousands!



Though there is so much gloom in the land, I want to end this piece on

a positive note, so I will leave my readers this week and every other

week with one of my wisdom nuggets which form the basis of my

ministration as a pastor and an ambassador of Christ.





Reno's Nuggets:

Don't ask for money from wealthy men. Ask for friendship. A beggar of

a rich man is poor.



A friend of a rich man becomes rich. You see, people remain poor

because when they get money they think of the latest phone or shoe

instead of a business idea to invest in. But when you befriend the

wealthy, you learn to think like them.



Finally, you can only become successful by association if you hang out

in places where the people you want to be like hang out #RenosNuggets



Reno Omokri is a Christian TV talk show host and founder of the Mind

of Christ Christian Center and the Helen and Bemigho Sanctuary for

orphans. He is the author of three books,



Shunpiking: No Shortcuts to God, Why Jesus Wept and Apples of Gold: A

Book of Godly Wisdom