BUHARI’S CERTIFICATE SAGA AND THE CORRUPTION WAR

It is necessary to start this discourse by stating the obvious and that is that the contents of the media interview by Mr. Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe on Buhari’s certificate suit were based on the proclamations made by the Director of Army Public Relations (DAPR) in 2015, that the Army could not find Buhari’s Secondary School Certificate in his personal military file. Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe’s media interview had nothing to do with the case he filed at the Federal High Court, Abuja, insisting that Buhari was not qualified to contest the 2015 presidential election.

When, therefore, Malam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media Affairs claimed that Nwokocha Ahaaiwe’s two-page interview in a national newspaper amounted to “media trial” or pronouncing Buhari “guilty” on a matter he (Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe) filed in the court, he was simply being clever by half in a dubious attempt to muddy the waters. (See “Buhari’s Certificate Suit: Presidency Accuses Lawyer of Overreaching the Court”, THISDAY, June 20, 2016, P.11).The point is that rather that threatening Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe with legal prosecution, Garba Shehu should muster the courage to advise Buhari to raise a competent legal team to defend him (Buhari) in the substantive matter before the court. The attempt to use the threat of legal prosecution or NBA sanctions to frighten or intimidate NwokochaAhaaiwe into abandoning his suit against Buhari or stopping him from granting interviews expressing his views on the matter, will not work because we are in a democratic polity.

As far as decent minds are concerned, Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe’s media interview did not breach any legal ethics and, therefore, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has no need to slam sanctions on anybody. As a matter of fact, Buhari should immediately actualise his threat to sue Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe over the contents of his media interview. At least, that will be another opportunity, outside the case already in court, for Nigerians to know whether Buhari was actually qualified to contest the 2015 presidential election. If the presidency cannot sue the army for claiming that Buhari has no Secondary School Certificate in 2015, it would be interesting to know the grounds on which Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe will be sued for merely premising his interview on the proceedings of a press conference granted by the military.

It is not enough for Garba Shehu to insist that “the litigant’s unabashed claim that he was a card-carrying member of the opposition PDP which lost power in the last election clearly indicates a scheme that seeks power by circumventing the democratic process of elections”. The issue is not about Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe’s membership of the PDP or the objective of his suit which is to get federal power back to Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. After all, it was not Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe who advised the All Progressives Congress (APC) to allegedly field an unqualified Buhari as its candidate in the 2015 presidential election. If Garba Shehu and his media team cannot articulate a convincing response to the contents of Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe’s media interview, the least that is expected of him is to keep quiet and not insult the intelligence of Nigerians with his threat to sue on the trumped up charge of “media trial” and abuse of free speech.

Perhaps, this is the time for Buhari to take another look at the quality of the men leading his media team. It is either Garba Shehu is incompetent to defend Buhari on issues of national and international importance or he is out for mischief or both. If Mr. Shehu’s long-term associate, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, has openly called for the restructuring of Nigeria, a position antithetical to that of Buhari, no one needs a prophet to know that Shehu may be working for an interest that wants Buhari’s image and integrity rubbished and diminished before the 2019 presidential election. Buhari must therefore not allow those who will be on a hunting expedition with him, and all of sudden, begin to grunt that he (Buhari) looks more like the same animal they are hunting to kill, to still be part of his presidential team for the governance of Nigeria.

As Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe pointed out in his interview under review, he had no intentions of commenting on the substantive case before the court.