The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has said that the federal government has no time to waste on such trivial matters surrounding the controversies that have trailed President Bola Tinubu’s academic records following the release of his credentials by the Chicago State University (CSU).
Tuggar, while speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday morning, said that the controversy would not whittle down the president’s commitment to the country’s development through robust international engagements, noting that Nigerians are always carried away by distractive frivolities.
“There is a tendency to always try to distract people from such frivolous issues as opposed to facing the major issues of development. We don’t have time to waste on that,” he said.
He questioned why people would be worried about the academic qualifications of the president, who has been a two-term governor and a constant figure in national politics.
“Nobody is wasting time about certificate qualification for somebody who has been a governor of a state, served two terms, and has been on the national stage as a politician.”
“You remember that (former) President Buhari had to go through the same thing, where people were questioning whether he went to secondary school or not? Someone who had classmates and was the captain? He was a head boy,” he added.
The minister also dismissed claims that the certificate saga could cast a shadow on Tinubu’s recent international meetings, stating that no one has shown interest in the saga.
“The foreign leaders that we’ve been engaging with and the international organizations are disinterested in wasting time on such. We pay no mind to that,” Tuggar stated.”
He added that, due to the critical situation of the nation, Nigerians should not be obsessed with certification but should concentrate on development.
”With the economic challenges we are facing, we shouldn’t be wasting time on some certificate, whether there is a T missing or an I that hasn’t been dotted. That shouldn’t be our primary focus at the moment,” he argued.
Recall that the presidential candidate of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, had approached the US District Court in Northern Illinois to compel the Chicago State University (CSU) to release President Tinubu’s academic records, arguing that it would boost his suit challenging his election in the February 25 poll.
He had requested the documents for use in Nigerian courts to support his argument that Tinubu forged a certificate he claimed to have obtained from CSU in 1979 and submitted to Nigeria’s electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), for the 2023 presidential election.
Following his move, a US court ordered CSU to release Tinubu’s academic records to Atiku.
On Monday, the university released to Atiku’s legal team a cache of documents connected to Tinubu’s education at the institution and copies of certificates with redacted names issued to other persons about the same time the Nigerian president finished the school in 1979.
It also contained Tinubu’s admission records and a letter dated June 27, 2022, confirming that he attended the university from August 1977 to June 1979, majoring in accounting. The letter said Tinubu was awarded a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with Honors on June 22, 1979.
