Nigeria’s former vice president Atiku Abubakar has challenged President Bola Tinubu to release his 1970 school certificate from Government College, Lagos.
Atiku was reacting after Tinubu’s camp called him out because his change of name affidavit was found to have been signed on Saturday.
According to Atiku, his affidavit was just one of the documents endorsed by Lagos State Registry at weekends in 1973, his spokesman, Phrank Shaibu, revealed.
Speaking at a press conference in Abuja on Sunday, he said the Atiku team had to carry out research to determine the veracity of the allegation raised by aides of President Bola Tinubu, only to make the discovery that it was not unusual for the registry to sign documents on Saturday.
Using slides to display some of the court papers he said were signed on Saturday by the Lagos registry, Shaibu, who was joined by his colleague, Paul Ibe, said the Atiku team had to do the research knowing the character of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election.
He said that: “Since the discovery of documents with Chicago State University brought to the fore the litany of certificate forgeries and impersonation by President Bola A. Tinubu, there have been attempts by many of his media aides to create a parallel narrative about the public life of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
“It was obvious from the start of their journey into futility that what the media aides and supporters of Bola A. Tinubu were doing was a random bite of the public profile of Atiku Abubakar until they found an item they could chomp with their filthy teeth.
“It was amusing watching them run kiti-kata like a person who drinks water and drops a cup—as we say in Naija parlance—of a restless soul on a fruitless journey.
“So, eventually, they found that the affidavit that Atiku Abubakar deposed to on August 18, 1973, wherein he expressed his wishes to be publicly known as Atiku Abubakar, was signed on a Saturday.
“And voila! The APC e-rats found what they had been looking for.
“For them, it isn’t important that the person called Bola A. Tinubu was discovered to be the name of a female, nor was it important that Bola A. Tinubu forged a certificate he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission or that Bola A. Tinubu is the Guinea pig student of the Government College Lagos, who was used to test run the school four years before it was founded.
“All that mattered to them was to pick a hole in Atiku Abubakar’s public profile.
“Like the late Fela Anikulapo said: I be thief, you be robber! You are also a thief, which is not a defence to an accusation of theft. They thought they had found someone else to share the inglorious stage of certificate forgery with.
“So, it was found out that Atiku’s affidavit was signed on a Saturday, and they went into a frenzy, oiled as a diesel train.”
He further said, “They blare and burn all decency. They have found a mate in their naked state. Oh Lord! Atiku’s affidavit was signed on a Saturday! They screamed.
“The sound of it mesmerises and intoxicates them. They get around as oiled as a diesel train!
“But because we know the character of the man that we work for, we knew that their frenzy was all vain hallucinations.
“We conducted research into the registry of the Lagos State high courts in the same year, 1973, to see if it was really an absurdity to have court papers signed on a Saturday.
“The outcome of our findings showed clearly that there are court papers that were signed on Saturdays in the year 1973! Atiku Abubakar’s affidavit was not the only one signed on Saturday, as the cornmen would want you to believe.”
Shaibu advised President Tinubu to emulate Atiku and clear all doubts regarding his documents.
He noted: “A practitioner of democracy, especially someone who sits on the chair of a president, must live above board.
“A president must mirror the moral rectitude of trust and transparency.
“To be called the president of a country is to be an approximation of the values that such a country stands for. Nigeria does not stand for forgeries and impersonation.
“It is, therefore, on this note that we, yet again, call on President Bola A. Tinubu to follow the example of Atiku Abubakar to clear the air about all doubts and kuru kere about his past.
“Since Lagos is his domain, we ask Bola A. Tinubu to boldly walk into Government College Lagos and make available to the world, just as we have done today, a copy of his 1970 certificate with which he sought admission into the Chicago State University. He may as well tell us about the business centre inside Oluwole Market in Lagos, where he printed the forged Chicago State University certificate that he presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
“And if, assuming the president is afraid to come out clean, we can only assume at this point that Bola A. Tinubu has some skeletons in his closet, he should feel free to confide in us what those skeletons are.
“It is embarrassing enough that the FBI and other anti-crime agencies in the United States are poised to start releasing information on our president any moment from now.
“It is more embarrassing that President Bola A. Tinubu will fight tooth and nail to block those discoveries about his past, saying such will cause him irreparable damage. Bola A. Tinubu needs to be reminded that what the FBI and other US security agencies are set to do by releasing the #FBITinubuFiles will undoubtedly cause Nigeria irreparable damage!
“Nigeria is a country of laws, and no one single man or woman, no matter how highly placed, is bigger than our laws.
“We hope that this discovery into Atiku’s Saturday affidavit by his own media team will rest this issue and provide the opportunity for Bola A. Tinubu’s team to come clean with its decades of forgeries and lies. Nigerians are waiting for them to put an end to this kindergarten, Tom and Jerry, that has done nothing but bring embarrassment and humiliation to our country and its people.”