By the time a woman stumbles more than once, the contents of her basket would have been fully counted. While every day may be for the thief, there will always be one day for the owner of the house. President Bola Tinubu has been stumbling while the universe has been counting. After years of artful dodging, he has finally been demystified and de-robed to the world.
“Conscience is an open wound, only truth can heal it” – Othman dan Fodio.
The Supreme Court is on trial. Bola Tinubu – arguably, the greatest strategist of this generation of predatory politicians – had the presidency as life ambition and did everything to grab it. Now that traces of fraud have been discovered in his credentials and identity (going by the depositions of the Chicago State University) in addition to the mayhem and the subversion of the Constitution and the 2022 Electoral Act in the February 25, 2023 presidential election by which he came to power, should he still occupy that position, when the greatest need of the country is moral re-armament? That is the question which should not be parried by technicalities. Law is made for man, not man for the law! Vox populi, vox Dei.
Law must anchor on social justice. It must checkmate the powerful and the predator for the weak and under-privileged, otherwise, society would descend into the state of nature which is nasty, brutish and short, as described by Thomas Hobbes in his book “Leviathan”. Without justice, there can be no peace and without peace there can be no development. The famed Social Contract would then stand defeated, which has been the lot of Nigeria of recent.
The issue with Tinubu’s credentials is not whether he attended the Chicago State University (CSU) or not, as being parried by his apologists and acolytes. It is how he got there, whether or not he did graduate and, above all, the source of the certificate he presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
The CSU has disowned the degree certificate Tinubu presented for the 2023 presidential election, under oath. Tinubu lied that he attended Government College, Lagos and graduated in 1970 (before the school was established in 1974) and passed the A’Level examination in science subjects but was, ironically, admitted to a community college for accountancy! And he putatively graduated from CSU without curing the defect in the prerequisites of English Language and mathematics, which is untenable in the American Credit Course system.
INEC admitted this “hanging” degree, which is not backed by an O’Level or A’Level certificate – a glaring defect which should have been interrogated (even if INEC had no responsibility to verify certificates) if there was no collusion. As it turned out, that election is believed to have been massively rigged by the collusion of the two parties.
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The scandal does not end with the apparently forged academic records. There are issues of identity theft, inconsistent age declaration and drug money laundering for which he forfeited USD460,000 in the United States. Also, Tinubu had always been called out by concerned citizens – from Chief Gani Fawehinmi to Festus Keyamo (yes, the same Keyamo) and David Hundeyin, among others.
By the time a woman stumbles more than once, the contents of her basket would have been fully counted. While every day may be for the thief, there will always be one day for the owner of the house. Tinubu has been stumbling while the universe has been counting. After years of artful dodging, he has finally been demystified and de-robed to the world. “How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished” (2 Samuel 1: 27)
Gagging Nigerians to wait for the Supreme Court to tell them what lying on oath and forgery (simple denotative terms) mean – despite precedents, the CSU depositions and our Constitution – amounts to begging the question. It is like asking for the candle to see in daylight!
Regardless of what the Supreme Court might say, the bull has escaped from the stable. The harm has been done.