Muhammadu Buhari, has said that he deliberately refused to release his West African Senior School Certificate (WASC) in 2015 when he took over power to allow those agitating over it to please themselves.
In 2015, the media space was awash with controversy over Buhari’s WASSC as many, especially opposition political members, said he had no senior secondary school certificate.
But Femi Adesina, former Special Assistant to Buhari on Media and Publicity, in chapter 5 of a book authored on working with Buhari, quoted the former President as saying sometime in 2018 that, “I was going through a drawer some days ago, and saw copies of my certificate. I always had it, but refused to release it, so that those venting spleen on it could please themselves.”
Recall that the book titled “Working with Buhari – Reflections of Special Adviser, Media & Publicity (2015-2023)” in which Adesina chronicled several insights into Buhari’s leadership and the challenges faced during his tenure was recently launched in Abuja.
According to Adesina, Buhari while recalling when the WAEC Registrar alongside his officials came to present the attestation certificate to him in November 2018, said that “It would have been impossible for me to attend the Defence Services Staff College, India (1973) and thereafter, United States Army War College, as a Nigerian military officer if I didn’t sit for the WASC examinations in 1961.”
The former President recounted that during his high school days, it was very difficult to commit examination fraud, even though it was not impossible.
Adesina further quoted Buhari as saying, “My colleagues and I who spent close to nine years in boarding school both in primary and secondary, including Gen. Musa Yar’adua, when we intended to join the military we had to take a military examination.
“We were examined in three subjects, English, Mathematics and General Knowledge because English is the language for general instruction throughout the country because of our colonial heritage.
“Mathematics in the military was necessary, coupled with Geography. We were trained how to be dropped off in the bush, given only a pair of compass and since we’re not astronomers, you’ve to learn to find your way, calculate, using the Pythagoras Theorem and others to work out your position.”
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