Fallacies and misrepresentations... Let me start to disabuse your mind by defining what an affidavit is ...” a written statement confirmed by oath or affirmation, for use as evidence in court.” It can be used for many purposes a good example is affidavit for age declaration. I know it might not be difficult to obtain in Nigeria but there are 7 steps that are required before one can obtained it Canada for instance. It is admissible in a court of law in most countries as a proof of evidence. Is not just an ordinary useless paper as most commentators in recent days have portrayed it to be. There are a number of fallacies circulating around about Buhari’s certificates lately. The most disturbing are legal experts that are not looking at the merits of the case, not interpreting the constitution explicitly or given the most absurd implicitly meaning to the intent of the constitution. How can one make unnecessary fuss about what is obvious? I have read the example of a white man swearing to affidavit to contest presidential election if that candidate will be acceptable by INEC? Yes, he should be allowed if there are no other requirements that nullifies him/her application, e.g.; place of birth or any other requirements in the constitution. The onerous is on those that are not satisfied with his disposition to challenge it in a court of law - period! INEC has no authority to disqualify someone that came with a sworn document which by implication is a legal document. People who are not satisfied with the document should go to court to challenge it. Take for instance the issue of age, who told the lawyer that you cannot present affidavit as a proof of your age. It is a common practice in Nigeria. The commissioner of oath will not sign affidavit for someone who is not in his/her opinion of that age. That is the misrepresentation of affidavit that a toddler can obtain affidavit for contesting election. What they are saying is that affidavit is issued without recourse to a thorough verification and commons sense. If the assertion is correct that affidavit/age declaration should not be acceptable that means most Nigerians are not eligible to contest elections, travel abroad or go to school. Declaration of age is very common in Nigeria...it has always been admissible. Therefore is a wrong example to justify Buhari’s disqualification. On the issue of educational requirements to join the army and the implication on his other certificates. The military said he got a paper from his principal to join the army, if that is the case and the practice those days what is the fuss about? Was that the practice then or the requirement for admission? Remember we are talking about 1960s when people are begged to join the military. If we have to accept that the requirement today should be the basis for evaluating his eligibility that means those that went to university when there were three subjects are no more graduates today when you need to pass 5 subjects. Or those who went to university through remedial are not graduates. What of those who did their A level directly for admission into higher institutions or those that are admitted based on their years of experience to a certificate course and rise afterward. The examples in this category are limitless. Admission requirements will change from time to time and you cannot use the requirement today to judge the requirement of 1960. Maybe all the officers of that period joined the army in the same way. I am not taking a brief for Buhari; I just want us to use common sense approach to solve the problem. There was insinuation as well that if Buhari has no secondary school certificate, then other certificates will not be valid. What a gross error in judgment. If one has no secondary school certificate and he/she sat for ICAN and passed would that mean he/she is not qualified to be a Chartered Accountant? Or not qualified to be Nigerian president? I guess to be chartered is higher than secondary certificate level. The assertion that certificate must be presented physically or as a certified copy is also wrong. If you have no copies and there are no copies to certified or notarized...so which copy can you present? In hindsight Buhari should have gone for transcripts which supposed to be issued directly by the institution to INEC. Now he has sworn under oath that he lost the certificates and the copies should be with the military. If the affidavit is about results not issued by the military that is wrong but since military is also an institution where certificates can be obtainable and since the constitutional provision is not specific about Secondary certificate level, the oath Buhari sworn to makes a lot of sense. The onerous is on those who will like to challenge or verify if Buhari sworn on false oath by instituting a legal action. It is only in Nigeria that a Major General in Nigerian Army will be deemed not to have equivalent of secondary school certificate level. Instead for us to be asking both candidates on how they will manage the economy in this dire period of plummeting oil prices we are focusing on the most useless of the debate – certificate. If they want to cause anarchy and break up Nigeria they should disqualify Buhari at least it will be in record that Jonathan started and completed the cycle of hopelessness in Nigeria. You can see in them the traits of bad losers!
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 06:08:45 +0000
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