Last week, media reports indicated that, at the end of filing of personal information before the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) many of Nigeria’s presidential and vice-presidential candidates informed the electoral body that they had “lost” their academic certificates. If you think the gale of missing certificates that currently afflicts Nigerian politicians is a fable that began today, then you apparently haven’t gone into Nigeria’s rich political maggot history. The truth is that, certificate forgery, identity trickery and fraudulent misrepresentation have become a meme of Nigerian politics, even from the pre-colonial times. While the presidential candidate of the All Progressives…

The social media, where most political debates take place these days and where brickbats are exchanged between protagonists and antagonists per nanosecond, has caught fire again with reports that Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), told the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that he did not attend a primary or secondary school. I found it curious that Tinubu would make such a claim. The law stipulates that a candidate must be educated “up to at least School Certificate level or its equivalent”, so how can Tinubu claim he did not go to school? Would he not…