By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
I am by no means a Buhari
enthusiast. But I’d choose him (or,
for that matter, anybody) over
Goodluck Jonathan, not because I
nurse any personal animus
against Jonathan (I actually feel
pity for him because the
presidency evidently overwhelms
and discombobulates him) but
because he has the dubious honor
of being Nigeria’s most disastrous
leader since independence. There
is no doubt that being Nigeria’s
president is way above Jonathan’s
pay grade.
As someone who has followed
America’s politics closely in the
last few years, I see uncannily
analogous parallels between the
ongoing contrived hoopla over
Buhari’s school certificate and the
manufactured hysteria by the
lunatic fringe of American
conservatives over Obama’s birth
certificate.
The conspiracy theorists who
believe that Obama was not born
in America and is therefore
ineligible to be America’s
president are derisively called
“birthers,” and their movement is
called “birtherism.” I think we
should also call the whacky
conspiracy theorists who believe
Buhari isn’t eligible to be
president of Nigeria because he
supposedly has no West African
School Certificate (WASC)
“WASCers,” and their movement
“WASCerism.”
So what are the similarities
between “birthers” and
“WASCers” and between
“birtherism” and “WASCerism”?
Let’s see.
When Obama’s previously
lackluster campaign for the White
House gained unprecedented
momentum and the prospects of
his triumph became an almost
inexorable certainty, his
opponents hatched a devious plot
to call to question his American
citizenship and, thus, his
suitability to run for the office of
America’s president. It started as
hushed whispers on the margins
of the American society. Then it
quickly spread to polite society,
and soon became the grist to the
mill of the American news media.
A cottage industry of conspiracy
theories about Obama’s putative
Kenyan birth mushroomed in no
time.
Obama’s campaign team initially
ignored what they thought was a
preposterous, scorn-worthy
distraction. They thought the self-
evident mendacity of the
accusation that Obama was born
in Kenya was sufficient defense
for Obama. For instance, when
Obama was born, at least three
Hawaiian newspapers published
notices of his birth. Microfilms of
the notices were published on the
Internet by the newspapers. Plus,
it’s simply implausible that a
teenage mother would leave the
comfort of America and travel to
Kenya, which she had never been
to, to give birth to her child and
then return to America after the
birth.
When the whispering campaigns
didn’t go away, Obama decided to
confront them frontally. On June
12, 2008, his campaign team
created a website called “Fight
the Smears.” On the website
Obama uploaded a scanned copy
of his "Certificate of Live Birth,"
also called the short form birth
certificate, which showed that he
was born in Hawaii. The
conspiracy theorists were not
persuaded. They said the birth
certificate was fake, was digitally
altered to mask its forgery, and
that it lacked the official stamp of
the state of Hawaii.
They said they wanted Obama’s
original, “long form birth
certificate.” In 2011 Obama
requested that authorities in
Hawaii release his original birth
certificate, which was uploaded
onto the White House website. But
it didn’t placate the conspiracy
theorists. They still said it was a
forgery.
Do you find any parallels here
between American birthers and
Nigerian WASCers? In the past
couple of election cycles that
Buhari has run for president, no
one has called his educational
qualification into question. He
wasn’t a real threat. The social,
cultural, and political basis of his
popularity derived from narrow
primordial confines. He was
chiefly popular among the people
of the extreme north, whose votes
are not sufficient to win him a
national election, the cocksure
confidence of his fanatical
supporters notwithstanding. But
this election cycle is different.
Buhari is riding on the crest of the
fierce wave of popular discontent
against Jonathan’s rank
incompetence.
About the only places Buhari isn’t
wildly popular are the southeast
and the deep south whose
combined electoral strength isn’t
sufficient to deny him a victory.
So there is nakedly transparent
panic in Aso Rock. What to do?
Well, enlist the news media—and
the social media— to, like Obama
“birthers,” manufacture a phony
controversy over his eligibility to
run for president. Put him on the
defensive. Say he has no school
certificate. Keep saying it until
you cause him to defend himself.
When he does defend himself,
pick holes in his defense, however
illogical and puerile this may be.
Ask for proof of his graduation
from a secondary school. When
he provides the proof, impeach
the credibility of the proof. Say
it’s a forgery.
This strategy is intended to
achieve two results. One, it would
slow Buhari’s ferociously rising
momentum. He is expected to be
bogged down with trying to refute
the layers of malicious falsehoods
they will continue to throw at
him. Second, by keeping the issue
in the news cycle up until election
day, seeds of doubt about
Buhari’s education, eligibility, and
integrity may grow into rejection
of his candidacy, especially
among the undecided.
But, like birthers in America, I
doubt that Nigerian WASCers can
derail the unrelenting march of
Buhari’s momentum. I only hope
that the Buhari campaign team
doesn’t allow Jonathan’s spin
doctors to continue to define the
main conversations of this
election season. There are more
pressing issues we should be
talking about than the “O” level
certificates of presidential
candidates.
It’s frankly silly to obsess about
the “O” level school certificate of
a man who not only rose to the
pinnacle of his military career but
became the head of state of his
country. In all this, though, it is
the Nigerian military’s public
statement on this issue that
bothers me deeply. When a
national military that can’t defeat
a gang of domestic terrorists gets
embroiled in dirty politicking, you
know you’re in really perilous
times.

This article is biased

But that's none of my business

*1 more muchacola pls

izzudiin:
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
I am by no means a Buhari
enthusiast. But I’d choose him (or,
for that matter, anybody) over
Goodluck Jonathan, not because I
nurse any personal animus
against Jonathan (I actually feel
pity for him because the
presidency evidently overwhelms
and discombobulates him) but
because he has the dubious honor
of being Nigeria’s most disastrous
leader since independence. There
is no doubt that being Nigeria’s
president is way above Jonathan’s
pay grade.
As someone who has followed
America’s politics closely in the
last few years, I see uncannily
analogous parallels between the
ongoing contrived hoopla over
Buhari’s school certificate and the
manufactured hysteria by the
lunatic fringe of American
conservatives over Obama’s birth
certificate.
The conspiracy theorists who
believe that Obama was not born
in America and is therefore
ineligible to be America’s
president are derisively called
“birthers,” and their movement is
called “birtherism.” I think we
should also call the whacky
conspiracy theorists who believe
Buhari isn’t eligible to be
president of Nigeria because he
supposedly has no West African
School Certificate (WASC)
“WASCers,” and their movement
“WASCerism.”
So what are the similarities
between “birthers” and
“WASCers” and between
“birtherism” and “WASCerism”?
Let’s see.
When Obama’s previously
lackluster campaign for the White
House gained unprecedented
momentum and the prospects of
his triumph became an almost
inexorable certainty, his
opponents hatched a devious plot
to call to question his American
citizenship and, thus, his
suitability to run for the office of
America’s president. It started as
hushed whispers on the margins
of the American society. Then it
quickly spread to polite society,
and soon became the grist to the
mill of the American news media.
A cottage industry of conspiracy
theories about Obama’s putative
Kenyan birth mushroomed in no
time.
Obama’s campaign team initially
ignored what they thought was a
preposterous, scorn-worthy
distraction. They thought the self-
evident mendacity of the
accusation that Obama was born
in Kenya was sufficient defense
for Obama. For instance, when
Obama was born, at least three
Hawaiian newspapers published
notices of his birth. Microfilms of
the notices were published on the
Internet by the newspapers. Plus,
it’s simply implausible that a
teenage mother would leave the
comfort of America and travel to
Kenya, which she had never been
to, to give birth to her child and
then return to America after the
birth.
When the whispering campaigns
didn’t go away, Obama decided to
confront them frontally. On June
12, 2008, his campaign team
created a website called “Fight
the Smears.” On the website
Obama uploaded a scanned copy
of his "Certificate of Live Birth,"
also called the short form birth
certificate, which showed that he
was born in Hawaii. The
conspiracy theorists were not
persuaded. They said the birth
certificate was fake, was digitally
altered to mask its forgery, and
that it lacked the official stamp of
the state of Hawaii.
They said they wanted Obama’s
original, “long form birth
certificate.” In 2011 Obama
requested that authorities in
Hawaii release his original birth
certificate, which was uploaded
onto the White House website. But
it didn’t placate the conspiracy
theorists. They still said it was a
forgery.
Do you find any parallels here
between American birthers and
Nigerian WASCers? In the past
couple of election cycles that
Buhari has run for president, no
one has called his educational
qualification into question. He
wasn’t a real threat. The social,
cultural, and political basis of his
popularity derived from narrow
primordial confines. He was
chiefly popular among the people
of the extreme north, whose votes
are not sufficient to win him a
national election, the cocksure
confidence of his fanatical
supporters notwithstanding. But
this election cycle is different.
Buhari is riding on the crest of the
fierce wave of popular discontent
against Jonathan’s rank
incompetence.
About the only places Buhari isn’t
wildly popular are the southeast
and the deep south whose
combined electoral strength isn’t
sufficient to deny him a victory.
So there is nakedly transparent
panic in Aso Rock. What to do?
Well, enlist the news media—and
the social media— to, like Obama
“birthers,” manufacture a phony
controversy over his eligibility to
run for president. Put him on the
defensive. Say he has no school
certificate. Keep saying it until
you cause him to defend himself.
When he does defend himself,
pick holes in his defense, however
illogical and puerile this may be.
Ask for proof of his graduation
from a secondary school. When
he provides the proof, impeach
the credibility of the proof. Say
it’s a forgery.
This strategy is intended to
achieve two results. One, it would
slow Buhari’s ferociously rising
momentum. He is expected to be
bogged down with trying to refute
the layers of malicious falsehoods
they will continue to throw at
him. Second, by keeping the issue
in the news cycle up until election
day, seeds of doubt about
Buhari’s education, eligibility, and
integrity may grow into rejection
of his candidacy, especially
among the undecided.
But, like birthers in America, I
doubt that Nigerian WASCers can
derail the unrelenting march of
Buhari’s momentum. I only hope
that the Buhari campaign team
doesn’t allow Jonathan’s spin
doctors to continue to define the
main conversations of this
election season. There are more
pressing issues we should be
talking about than the “O” level
certificates of presidential
candidates.
It’s frankly silly to obsess about
the “O” level school certificate of
a man who not only rose to the
pinnacle of his military career but
became the head of state of his
country. In all this, though, it is
the Nigerian military’s public
statement on this issue that
bothers me deeply. When a
national military that can’t defeat
a gang of domestic terrorists gets
embroiled in dirty politicking, you
know you’re in really perilous
times.

@bolded what more can I say

I always like the way this Farooq guy writes - though I'm not so much interested in what he's saying most times.

This kind of threads don't make Front page because the biased mods don't want people to know the truth. Anyway, you can only hide the truth for so long. Come FeBuhari, we shall all be here.

Crap.

He should produce his certificate.

the certificate Obama gave online was said to be fake for simple reason. the place where the father is supposed to state his nationality, it says Kenyan. at the time of his birth, the nation Kenya was officialy known as British eastafrica. then on ethnicity, it says African American, at that time, that word dint exist, blacks were know as negroes,

izzudiin:
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
I am by no means a Buhari
enthusiast.

YOU ARE!!!

And if you said that what will happen? You think it will deny you the little change for your nonsense article?

The issue is no more Buhari's certificate. We have all moved on. Thank God we now know who is who and where Buhari belongs.

He is a product of favouritism, fraudulently drafted into the army and commissioned without obtaining basis qualification- A beneficiary of corruption. Buhari is part of the problem of Nigeria

He rose to where he is not supposed to and is today demanding to rule over educated fools like you who don't know any better