Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, made this statement available to journalists.
Shehu was reacting to a story published by SUNDAY PUNCH titled, “Prominent Nigerians with certificate scandals”
Apart from Buhari, former President Goodluck Jonathan, former Senate President, Evans Enwerem; former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Salisu Buhari; Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose; and a national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, were listed, among others, in the publication.
But Shehu said Buhari did not fit into the categorisation because he had no certificate scandals.
He, however, admitted that the issue of certificate was raised against the President, among other allegations, ahead of the 2015 presidential election, which he won.
The presidential spokesman said the issue of Buhari’s certificate was raised by those who wanted him disqualified from the presidential race.
He said the issue was, however, successfully dealt with before the election, saying the President had no certificate case hanging on his neck.
The statement read, “We wish to emphatically state that President Muhammadu Buhari does not fit into the categorisation of leaders with certificate scandals because he bears none that is on available records.
“In the course of the contest for the office of the President in 2015, a number of wild, untrue and malicious allegations were made against him in order to stop him from contesting the election.
“The issue of certificate was raised against him but the campaign successfully dealt with the allegations by providing evidence that not only was he qualified to run, he had a far higher academic qualification than is required by the constitution. As a result, he went on to run for the office and eventually won.
“Since the purpose of the challenge was primarily to stop him from being a candidate in that election, the challengers either voluntarily withdrew or abandoned the cases soon after he won and all of them were subsequently struck off by the courts.
“The President has no certificate case hanging on his neck.”
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