Campaign shouldn’t be on Buhari’s secondary school certificate- Punch Yoruba Newspaper.

Nigerians have said the presidential campaign of the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress should not be centred on the secondary school certificate of the APC candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, but on Nigeria’s multifaceted problems.

This is the outcome of an opinion of PUNCH online between January 27 and February 11, 2015, where readers were asked to whether the campaign in the run-in to the election should be about Buhari’s certificate or how to address the nation’s challenges.

With the question ‘Do you think the ongoing presidential campaign between the PDP and the APC should be centred on the secondary school certificate of Muhammadu Buhari or the numerous challenges facing the country?’, participants in the poll were asked to choose between ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

A total of 1, 702 readers participated in the poll with 1,307, representing 77 per cent of the total respondents, saying the campaign should not be about the former Head of State’s secondary school certificate.

Conversely, 395 respondents, which represent 23 per cent of the participants, believed that the certificate of the APC presidential candidate is more important than discussing how to solve the nation’s problems.

Major actors in the Nigerian political parties, especially the Peoples Democratic Party, have called for Buhari’s disqualification from the presidential race on account that he failed to submit his secondary school certificate along his form to INEC.

Some lawyers have even gone to court seeking Buhari’s prosecution for alleged forgery and perjury.

The military, which many thought would have the presidential candidate’s certificates in its custody, denied having Buhari’s WASCE certificate, raising doubt about how he was admitted to the military school in the first place.

Buhari has since asked his school, the Provincial College (now Government College), Katsina, to release his result, which has since been made public.

The debate over the secondary school certificate of the former head of state has, however, not abated.Read more