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Certificate Controversy: Lawyer Files Lawsuit Against Buhari, Petitions IG Of Police

January 27, 2015

An Abuja-based lawyer has filed a lawsuit on behalf of four plaintiffs accusing Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), of lying about his secondary school certificate.

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An Abuja-based lawyer has filed a lawsuit on behalf of four plaintiffs accusing Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), of lying about his secondary school certificate.  

In the lawsuit filed at the magistrate court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, the lawyer, Ezekiel Ugochukwu, named his clients as Shield Jones Ufot, Jimmy David, Ogueri Enwerem and Tochukwu Okorie. Mr. Ugochukwu notified the court that his clients are asserting that Mr. Buhari, a retired army general, gave “false evidence to a public officer contrary to Section 157 of the Penal Code and punishable under Section 158 of the Penal Code Law.”

Described as “Nigerian citizens, activists and social crusaders committed to ensuring obedience” to Nigerian laws, the plaintiffs claim that the APC presidential candidate had on December 18, 2014 misled the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) when he claimed to have obtained a secondary school certificate in 1961. 

The lawsuit stated that Mr. Buhari’s alleged false claims were intended “to mislead a public officer as to compliance with the provisions of Section 31 of the Electoral Act, 2010,” relating to academic qualifications for the presidency. According to the plaintiffs, Mr. Buhari lied when he claimed in affidavits that his “West African School Certificate and the certificates he claimed to have obtained are with the Nigerian Army.” According to the lawsuit, “the Nigerian Army in whose custody General Mohammadu Buhari and the All Progressive Congress (APC) claim the certificates are, issued a statement published in the Thisday Newspaper of Wednesday January 21, 2015 at pages 1 and 6 and Daily Trust Newspaper of Thursday, January 22, 2015, and denied being in possession of the school certificates.”

They added that Mr. Buhari “never sat for the West African Examination Council examination in 1961 as he claimed,” insisting that his name does not appear “in the entire records of [Government College, Katsina] and West African Examination Council.” 

The lawsuit, which is dated January 27, 2015, urged the court to intervene in order to bring Mr. Buhari to answer to the plaintiffs’ complaint.

In a related development, the plaintiffs’ lawyer has petitioned Inspector-General of Police Suleiman Abba to immediately commence a criminal investigation of Mr. Buhari on allegations of perjury and giving false evidence to a public officer. Writing on behalf of some of the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit against the APC candidate, the lawyer called on Mr. Abba to investigate Mr. Buhari and the APC for “clear falsification of facts and lying under oath to a public officer.” He urged the police chief to “cause the result of your investigation to be made available to the public.”