- The reason Nigerians can die for titles and degree has been revealed
- Some Nigerian intellectuals have said that political leaders would not resist their irrepressible urge and appetite for fake certificates and empty titles
- They describe title seekers as empty vessels that have to overcompensate for bearing that which is not rightly theirs
Long before Senator Dino Melaye got into certificate scandal, there were Bola Tinubu, Andy Uba, Salisu Buhari, Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari, Ayo Fayose, Domingo Obende, Maurice Iwu, Gabriel Suswam, Adam Oshiomhole, Godwin Obaseki, Ndi Okereke-Onyuike, Evans Enwerem and Stella Oduah.
President Muhammadu Buhari
Sahara Reporters reports that the academic requirement for the highest political office in Nigeria, the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is High School Leaving Certificate.
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NAIJ.com lower level positions also require the same level of education. Most people would not know this by a look at a cross section of Nigerian politicians that have been implicated in certificate scandals since the return of democracy in 1999.
The people involved are the ‘who is who’ in Nigerian politics over the years, including President Muhammadu Buhari.
President Muhammadu Buhari
During the 2015 elections, then candidate Buhari was unable to produce his University of Cambridge/West African School Certificate. He argued that the military authorities had it on record but the then government in power would not let the military release it.
He later released something from the 21st century that was not a copy of what he obtained as a high school graduate in Kastina in 1961.
Bola Tinubu
As governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007, he was caught in a certificate scandal when he claimed to have graduated from Chicago State University in his election campaign filings. A check with the University showed that he was never a student there. Just like the case of Dino Melaye, his defenders came up with the argument that he changed his name.
Andy Uba
As domestic help of then President Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr Ubah wielded so much power in the Obasanjo administration that when he led thugs to Anambra state capital to destroy government properties, President Olusegun Obasanjo looked away. With the support of Obasanjo, he later ran for governor of Anambra state.
During that run, it was revealed that none of the degrees he claimed to have earned were authentic. He allegedly bought a doctorate degree from a degree mill. Even his bachelor degree from California State University was not authenticated.
Saharareporters sought the opinion of some Nigerian public intellectuals on the matter. Here are their reactions.
Pius Adesanmi, PhD: professor, writer and political commentator. He is the author of “You are Not a Country, Africa” (2011); “Naija No Dey Carry Last” (2015).
APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
He said that: "I don’t think that there can be one straightforward explanation for the epidemic of self-inflation in Nigeria. It is perhaps the most democratic of our national ills in terms of its spread across all classes and social milieux.
"However, it is much more prevalent in the ruling class, among the political elite. I think you will need to go to sociology, history and even psychoanalysis to understand the problem. Why does a Nigerian, and especially a member of the political elite, need to keep on purchasing traditional chieftaincy titles till he practically draws his last breath on earth?
"And not content with chieftaincy titles, why does he need to make a fraudulent claim to academic degrees – especially foreign academic degrees? And why do they do this in the most unnecessary of circumstances? Salisu Buhari had enough education. He did not need to fraudulently claim an additional degree from the University of Toronto.
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"I think the personality issues, the inadequacies, the inferiority complex that is manifest in all these people is tied to the disconnect between our self-image as the “giant of Africa” and the material report card of our condition as an “open sore of the continent” (apologies to Wole Soyinka).
President Buhari once said and I quote that: “if Nigeria does not kill Corruption, Corruption will kill Nigeria.”
"I crave your indulgence to improve on that statement by saying that if Nigerian political leaders would not check or resist their irrepressible urge and appetite for fake certificates and empty titles, there is a chance that the observation we have seen in Senator Dino Melaye of Kogi would remain a tip of the iceberg.
Obiwu (Obi Iwuanyanwu), PhD: professor, writer and poet. He is the author of “Igbos of Northern Nigeria” and “Tigress at Full Moon” amongst other works.
Obiwu said: "The first emergency, out-of-tradition, titleholders in Nigeria were the Warrant Chiefs, who were invented by the colonial masters. The same colonizers also dethroned any, and all, traditional rulers and leaders who proved uncontrollable or rebellious, and quickly replaced them with more amenable and pliable loafers or taskmasters.
In other words, there is always-already something unnatural, in effect untraditional, about all postcolonial titling and titleholders. They are more like empty vessels that have to overcompensate for bearing that which is not rightly theirs.
Andy Uba
"They shout and yell and make the loudest noise just to be noticed. How else will anyone know that they are there if they do not go overboard to draw attention to themselves?
"The Igbo society, like the Hausa and Yoruba societies, is reward oriented. As the Igbo say, when a child washes his hands, he dines with elders.
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"How could any young folk with a sense of self-regard and self-worth want to dance to the Ijele drums, when they have nothing to show that they belong with the elite of the community? It’s just like Warrior sings in his highlife song, that he who has no money but desires to eat Owerri soup is an “Odoko,” a troublemaker. The wise is exhorted to keep away from such thugs.
