Tinubu and his foot soldiers cannot just prance about and treat the web of certificate, identity crisis and drug allegations around him as if they do not matter. No! They do. They are indeed, big issues. As the 2027 elections draw near, Nigerians need to know their President and his past so as to determine whether to renew his mandate or not. If Tinubu is not prepared for that simple test of transparency and integrity, he should back out of the 2027 contest and even resign from his present position.
By Emeka Alex Duru
This is not a cruising moment for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. It is rather a tough time. Apart from the energy-sapping demands of his office, he is literally in the dock, buffeted at home by demands from patriotic Nigerians to know his past, his credentials and his real identity; abroad, by the renewed angle of his alleged involvement in a drug trafficking case in the US, sometime in the past. The President may seem not bothered but he is obviously rattled. The drug issue has to do with a 1993, United States government seizure of $460,000 from accounts linked to Tinubu as proceeds connected to heroin trafficking. It is cited as Case No. 93 C 4483, Northern District of Illinois. In a worrisome development, on August 28, 2026, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed under sworn declaration that it carried out an investigation into Tinubu’s activities. This is not a pronouncement of guilt, anyway. But curiously, the President has filed papers fighting to keep those records away from public view.
Nigerians have thus been asking why the President is fighting hard to hide files if they contain nothing damaging on him. The Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has been unrelenting in the battle to nail the President on the drug deal allegation. From his angle, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) flag bearer, Peter Obi, is asking Tinubu to come clean on how he skipped his primary and secondary education qualifications and the schools attended in his filings with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
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To be sure, the President only stated that he attended Chicago State University. His Minister for Aviation, Festus Keyamo, in a bizarre yeoman justification of the charade, told Nigerians that the President, being a genius in his estimation, did not need primary or secondary school certificates to enter the university. But Nigerians are not sold to his fairy tales and promptly reminded him of instances of senior citizens, who for challenges of funding and other reasons, did not attend conventional secondary schools but took the relevant examinations as private students. Legal icon, Afe Babalola (SAN), is among these exceptionally bright and courageous Nigerians. Without a teacher, Babalola sat for and passed the Cambridge School Certificate Examination, the GCE Ordinary Level and Advanced Level examinations through correspondence. He proceeded to acquire other academic laurels.
Tinubu has not shown any evidence of where and how he got the credentials with which he entered Chicago State University. The other time, in 2023 when the President variously laid claims of having attended Government College Ibadan (GCI), Loyola College, Ibadan and Government college Lagos, he was faulted with facts. That of Government College Lagos, was more intriguing. He claimed to have left the school in 1970. Checks indicated however that the institution was established in 1974 – four years after he claimed to have graduated from it. This certificate controversy has been swirling around him since his days as Lagos state governor (1999-2007) but the heat seems to be more intense as he desperately seeks reelection.
For a breather, Tinubu has jetted out of the country in what his aides said, was a three-week working vacation to Europe. His All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftains added that he has gone out to observe a deserving rest in readiness for the intensive campaigns ahead of the January 2027 presidential poll. The opposition political parties however, disagree. They interpret Mr. President’s absence as a desperate move to deflect attention from citizens anxious to know his antecedents. You may not rule out this suspicion, entirely. But then, how far and how long can the President run from his shadow? To what extent will he hide from scrutiny?
The issues involved are weighty and symbolic. The office of the President is not an ordinary position. It is the repository of the sovereignty of the nation. So long as President Tinubu keeps going forth and back on the drug trafficking allegation and fleeting academic certificate profile, Nigeria remains an object of mockery and derision abroad. In both instances, it is not only Tinubu that is on trial but the entire Nigerian nation. Asking lawyers to block the release of files by the FBI does not speak well for the President and the country. A popular cart-pusher while we grew up in downtown Ngwa Road, Aba, Abia State, Omeokachie, wrote on his truck; “Clear conscience fears no accusation”. That could sound rudimentary but it is certainly what the President needs to deal with, now. Let him tell his country men and women, who he was at a time.
On occasions as this, I recall an incident in our days in the rested The Post Express Newspapers, Apapa, Lagos, when a colleague was about to be made the Daily Editor of the Paper and overnight, his contemporaries interested on the post, connived with corrupt minds in the administration department and all his academic records were removed from his file, leaving only the West African School Certificate. Rumours were injected into the organisation that he was not adequately educated for the position. He was denied the appointment. But he did not bring down the house. All he did was to forward a new set of credentials, indicating that he graduated from a higher institution in Lagos and dared anyone with contrary facts to prove him wrong. None did. He was eventually made the Editor of the Paper. Today, he is Managing Director of a leading newspaper organisation.
Equally, in 2011, when opponents raised dust that the then United States’ President, Barack Obama was not born in the country, the White House simply released copies of his original birth certificate to put an end to the rumors. The certificate stated that the president was born at Honolulu’s Kapiolani Hospital on August 4, 1961. That, put paid to insinuations. Obama even addressed the issue. “We do not have time for this kind of silliness… “Normally I would not comment on something like this. But the country has some enormous challenges out there that it will not be able to effectively meet if we’re distracted”, he said.
This is precisely the type of reaction Nigerians expect from President Tinubu on the allegations against him. And he needs to do so! You see, the presidency is a big office. An occupant of the position is like one living in a glass house in a market square. There is no hiding place for him. Everyone sees him. The job itself, is quite tasking in all ramifications. Little wonder, American essayist, John Dickerson in his piece on the White House, described the presidency as the hardest job in the world. According to Dickerson, when the national fabric rends, the president will administer needle and thread, or at least reach for the sewing box of unity. The President remains the mirror through which nationals of a country see themselves or are seen. When Gerald R. Ford (38th U.S. President) stated that the ‘presidency is not a prize to be won, but a duty to be done’, part of the requirements is the President being transparent in letting the citizens know who really, he is. As it is in America, so should it be in Nigeria.
Tinubu and his foot soldiers cannot just prance about and treat the web of certificate, identity crisis and drug allegations around him as if they do not matter. No! They do. They are indeed, big issues. As the 2027 elections draw near, Nigerians need to know their President and his past so as to determine whether to renew his mandate or not. If Tinubu is not prepared for that simple test of transparency and integrity, he should back out of the 2027 contest and even resign from his present position.
