The University of Cambridge has said that Hausa Language, which is one of the subjects listed in the “certificate” of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, General Muhammad Buhari, was not offered in its examinations in 1961.
The disclosure was contained in an e-mail dated Thursday, January 22, 2015 from the institution’s Archives Delivery Service Officer, Jacky Emerson, to one Sodiq Alabi who requested for confirmation if the examination body offered Hausa Language in the 1961 West African Certificate Examination it organized.
Emerson, in his one-sentence reply, said: “According to the Regulations for 1961, African Language papers, including those for Hausa were not included for West African School Certificate.”
This development may have further cast doubts on the certificate which is purported to be General Buhari’s. He is yet to react to the assertion by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organisation that the document (the published certificate) was forged and illegally procured.
The Campaign Organisation, through its Director of Media and Publicity, Femi Fani-Kayode, had pointed out a number of inconsistencies in the document at a press conference last Thursday in Abuja.
Fani-Kayode had, among other things, pointed out the alteration on Mathematics, which he said General Buhari must have failed, adding that since that was the case, he should not have been enlisted in the military as commissioned officer, having failed to satisfy the requirement of pass at credit level in Mathematics.
He said at best, Buhari should have been enlisted as a non-commissioned officer.
He had also questioned the recent passport photograph of Buhari on the statement of result (which is not a certified true copy) purportedly issued by the Ministry of Education, Katsina State; the “1961” date at the top of the document which conflicted with the “2015” date signed by the Principal of Government College (Pilot) Katsina, whose name was not stated in the document.
Fani-Kayode had called on the Police to track down those who masterminded the forged statement of result.
Meanwhile, a research report by an educationist and Professor of Educational Foundations in the University of Ilorin, A. A. Adeyinka, has punched holes in the claims Gen. Buhari that he sat for and got credit pass in Hausa Language from the Provincial College (now Government College, Katsina), in 1961.
Adeyinka, in the report titled: “Major Trends in Curriculum Development in Nigeria”, said no school in Nigeria offered subjects in local languages at the time.
His research report had further chipped away the credibility of the Statement of Result released by the college to support General Buhari’s claims that he sat for the secondary school certificate examination.
According to the his research, available at www.unilorin.edu prior to the emergence of a centralised government by the regime of General Yakubu Gowon from 1966 to 1975, all regions in Nigeria had different academic curriculums.
He added that it was only the Western Region that offered a local language as a subject in both their curriculum and school certificate examinations.
The university don said it was after a central government was formed and a universal educational curriculum was developed and adopted that other local languages were included in schools curriculums in 1974.
He listed subjects in the academic curriculum to include English Language, Biology, Commerce, Principles of Accounts, Health Science, Literature in English, Bible Knowledge, History, Geography, Yoruba, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry.
According to Adeyinka, Yoruba entered the academic curriculum following the recommendations of a Commission set up to review the academic curriculum for schools in the then Western Region.
He wrote: “In the former Western Region, for example, both the Banjo Report (1961) and the Taiwo Report (1968) recommended the revision of the school syllabuses and the introduction of a new structure of education.
“The Banjo Report specifically recommended a new model for secondary education, comprising junior and senior secondary schools. The curriculum of the former should be comprehensive.
“This was partly the origin of the Aiyetoro Comprehensive School experiment started in 1963. The Taiwo Committee recommended that the primary-school curriculum should be overhauled and new syllabuses prepared in such subjects as Mathematics and Social Studies. Similar recommendations were made in the East (Dike 1959, Ivan Ikoku, 1964).”
General Buhari has raised a lot of dust over the delay in the release of his school certificate to support claims he made in the forms he filled with the Independent national Electoral Commission (INEC) as part of requirements to contest the 2015 presidential elections on February 14.
