Former President Muhammadu Buhari said he intentionally refused to release his West African Senior School Certificate in the build-up to the 2015 general elections.
Buhari said his refusal was to his critics “venting spleen on it could please themselves.”
Recalling when the WAEC Registrar, alongside his officials, came to present the attestation certificate to Buhari in November 2018, Adesina quoted him as saying, “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.”
However, Buhari said amid the outcry and criticisms from Nigerians, he found copies of his certificate in his “drawer.”
This was contained in the just-launched book by his former spokesman, Femi Adesina titled: “Working with Buhari: Reflections of a Special Adviser, Media and Publicity (2015-2023).”
Adesina quoted Buhari as saying in 2018, “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.
“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.”
