By Lanre Adewole
Two years into the presidency of now late Muhammadu Buhari, a senior judicial officer publicly disclosed there was a deliberate decision to keep him on the 2015 presidential ballot without much consideration for the merit of the cases seeking his disqualification over his disputable academic qualifications for the poll. Buhari would go on to defeat then incumbent Goodluck Jonathan.
With about seven separate court actions, a lawfare was genuinely threatening the eligibility of the retired General as controversies swirled around the non-submission or verification of his West African Examination Council (WAEC)/military certificates as required under Section 131 of the 1999 Constitution.
As APC candidate, Buhari, in his INEC nomination forms and accompanying affidavits, claimed that his credentials, including his WASC/WAEC results were in the custody of the military board.
The Nigerian Army, where he was Commander-in-Chief for 20 months (between December 31, 1983 and August 27, 1985), through its then Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier-General Olajide Laleye denied holding the original certificates. The military stated that while entry records on NA Form 199A confirmed Buhari obtained a WASC in 1961, neither the original nor certified copies of the certificates were in his personal military file!
To counter the scandal, APC’s media team led by Lai Mohammed who later served as Buhari’s Information Minister structured a campaign narrative that a certificate-less Buhari would be a better president than Jonathan with a PhD.
The foot soldiers were also everywhere with the message that Buhari, with even a NEPA bill as academic certificates, would be the choice pick at the poll.
The outcome would suggest the messaging resonated with the majority of voters in the election.
When the court declined to disqualify Buhari despite the obvious lacuna in his claims concerning his academic credentials, many had passed the judicial decisions possibly as the reasoning of the law, only for the then Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Ndai Auta to publicly reveal on September 12, 2017 that not disqualifying Buhari was a consideration outside of the law.
Multiple media reports stated that Auta spoke at the ceremony marking the commencement of the 2017/2018 legal year, where he praised his court as an unbiased arbiter, “for allowing a level-playing ground for all contestants in the general (2015) election”.
He was quoted as saying, “Despite all pressures to stop certain members of the National Assembly as a result of their abandonment of the party that brought them to power, the court insisted that every candidate must be allowed to test his/her popularity.
“Secondly, the attempt to stop the president (Buhari) from contesting was also rejected by this court. This is because we in the Federal High Court preferred a level playing ground to all candidates.
“It is this option and insistence of this court that has kept the country together during and after the election. The nation therefore owes it to the judiciary and particularly Federal High Court for the unity of this country”.
Charging judges under him then, including his current successor, Justice John Tsoho and controversial Justice Peter Lifu, Auta reportedly said, “I urge you to be the reason the common man would believe in the goodness of the system. Do not be worried about the social media and those that deliver judgment on the pages of newspaper.
“The job of judging is a special gift from God and in the end you will face God to justify your actions.
“I pray that God changes our mind to think more about the unity of Nigeria where everyone is treated as one and the same. Our job is perhaps the only one that guarantee the aspirations of our founding fathers”, he added.
September 16, 2017, four days after the bombshell disclosure, Auta retired.
Truth be told, I wasn’t completely unaware of the deal that saved Buhari.
A media aide to the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed had told me in confidence weeks before the election that his principal had instructed the leadership of the Federal High Court (meaning Justice Auta) that no candidate, especially Buhari, should be disqualified by any federal court.
The aide who is now late, particularly used the word “level playing field” while discussing the development with me, alleging pressure from the Goodluck Jonathan inner circle, though it would appear the incumbent of the time, wasn’t particularly personally keen on keeping Buhari away from the contest.
You can say maybe he (Jonathan) wasn’t as desperate to keep power as those who came after him, including Buhari, who was saved by the judiciary. Aside bulldozing the judiciary like never before in the annals of the country, Buhari would refuse to act on the nomination of Mahmud’s successor (Walter Onnoghen) even in acting capacity until the very last day of Mahmud, who threatened to take over the presidential duty and swear his successor in. Even at that, Buhari wasn’t going to budge and was ready to throw the entire arm of government into a leadership crisis until a team of former CJNs met and persuaded him to give Onnoghen a chance.
He eventually sacked Onnoghen as CJN.
Though the official reason was conviction for alleged failure to declare his assets as demanded by the constitution, Onnoghen, according to his close aides, was forced out of office over accusation of joking to a then governor from Southern Nigeria, who is now a senate big man, that “una president wey no get certificate”.
The fellow allegedly captured the light-hearted moment on his phone!
Onnoghen and the said fellow were supposed to share camaraderie but the latter who was reportedly seeking a soft landing in Buhari’s APC when his party became too hot for him, allegedly decided to throw Onnoghen under the bus to gain Buhari’s trust.
While I can’t independently confirm this allegation and if today’s senate big masquerade was yesterday’s snitch, at least I know Onnoghen joked (maybe he still does) a lot. Before his confirmation I was a guest in his house, in a visit facilitated by my uncle who I can’t identify here. When we stepped into his living room and he showed up in a black body-hugging shirt and a pair of jeans, I was almost asking “where is the CJN”?
He constantly cracked us up all through our stay that night, feting us with garden eggs, groundnuts and Tom-Tom candy. Uncle was making moves for me then to be appointed his (Onnoghen’s) spokesperson.
As CJN, whenever I wrote stuff that gladdened him, he would send message across that I should be given a gbosa (street salute) Are you wondering if anything followed? Nothing, I assure.
I learnt from Mahmud’s aide that his specific instruction to the top judicial operatives of his era, was that nobody should be allowed to use the court to decide for the voters and those who have eligibility claims against their opponents could come back after the field exercise by way of election petitions!
Two years after, Auta confirmed the gist, only that I was under strict confidentiality pledge not to write in 2015 and Jonathan, the incumbent Buhari defeated, would also walk away without contesting the eligibility issue at the election tribunal.
Years later, Buba Galadima, Buhari’s longtime associate who later fell out with him after he won the presidency, said in a television interview that Jonathan stood a good judicial chance of retaining the presidency if he had challenged Buhari’s eligibility at the election tribunal.
Galadima is loquacious no doubt, and he says a lot of contestable things a lot of times, but his claim on the eligibility issue would make a lot of sense because he was a confidant to Buhari pre-his presidency and even after the Katsina soldier took the Villa.
He knew what they buried, he knew where and the toes of the dead, sticking.
But the rest as they say is history.
It’s noteworthy that Buhari’s legal defence over the eligibility issue was marshaled by Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, personal lawyer to today’s president, Bola Tinubu, who was the political General leading APC to capture federal power then.
In a strange twist, the 2019 eligibility challenge against Buhari was mounted by Atiku Abubakar, who was then the main opposition to Buhari as PDP’s candidate. Today, as ADC’s presidential candidate against Bola Tinubu of APC, it is Atiku’s eligibility that is now under judicial sword. What a full circle!
If the Yoruba want to capture the Atiku situation, they will likely say tie de ba na niyen (it’s his turn to confront the challenge). In the 2023 poll where Atiku was also the strongest opposition to APC and Tinubu its candidate, the one under the eligibility cloud was Tinubu over his academic credentials, just like Buhari.
Though no judge has come forward to make the kind of Auta’s claim, what is not in doubt is that Tinubu survived all the pre-election push to stop him from participating in the poll he would later win.
By the time the eligibility issue came up at the election tribunal, he was already seated as president. There is a Yoruba adage about the lead ring (symbol of authority) being already slipped into the chief priest’s finger.
That is why many Nigerians are demanding that all election cases are done with, before winners are allowed to take their seats.
The controversial amendment to the Electoral Act signed by the president on February 19, 2026, would seem to contain this clause, but since nothing seems definite with the Akpabio National Assembly, things would only get clearer after the poll when judicial review and resolution is expected to commence.
But even at that, the eligibility issue involving the president won’t be much of an issue since he’s still the sitting president which was also the situation with Buhari in 2019.
With the presidential election just 60 days away, even a temporary relief, the kind that Buhari got from the judicial leadership of Justice Mahmud, may not bring Atiku lasting peace, even if he goes ahead to win the January 16, 2027 poll, also like Buhari.
One, there is no assurance the Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun leadership would want to go the route of his predecessor, Mahmud, which sent all contestants to the field, to test their popularity and electoral strength.
The current CJN might just want to strictly stay with the law and get Atiku’s case decided all the way to her apex court, between now and when the election comes up.
The clearest indication of a deal to save Buhari was Auta’s confession that his court decided to provide a level-playing field despite the fact he didn’t assign any of the cases seeking Buhari’s disqualification to himself.
The cases were handled by Justice Adeniyi Ademola, who also controversially left the Judiciary. So for his then boss to come out boldly and claimed he stopped those seeking to stop Buhari, he must have passed specific instructions to the subordinate he assigned the cases.
It would also mean the entire proceedings were negotiated and teleguided, to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion.
Is it likely that is what is also going on at the federal high court under Auta’s current successor, Tsoho, only that the destination is different this time?
In hammering Atiku, was Lifu also just doing his boss’s bidding like Ademola carrying out Auta’s directive, as later confirmed by the then CJ himself?
Is Judiciary now a negotiated territory in this political season?
Has it always been, just depending on who is at the helm and wants what?
The eligibility cases against Buhari and Asiwaju, built on the discrepancies in their academic qualifications may be different in context to Atiku’s, which is about party’s internal crisis, but the crux is undoubtedly same; stop a potential president-elect from being on the ballot.
Though CJN Mahmud had retired before Auta made his public claim, it’s certain there was no way the decision could have wholly been the CJ’s. Mahmud’s aide also long confirmed the decision not to judicially hold a candidate down for another, was his boss’s.
Hopefully, I get a chance of asking the 82-year-old jurist about the Buhari deal, someday.
Did Auta and others in the Buhari deal, actually save the nation as he assumed and deserve the heroism he wanted Nigerians to ascribe to the judiciary of his time?
Well, it would depend on who is answering the questions.
But one thing is certain, reprieve is kind of far from Atiku even if another judicial deal is inked to temporarily preserve his candidacy and he runs and wins, like Buhari of 2015.
The major difference is that unlike the incumbent Buhari defeated, this incumbent is never going to walk away without a ferocious judicial fight if defeated. His antecedent speaks to the conclusion. Anything short of it would be a miracle.
Atiku, as president-elect, fighting from outside of power will also certainly face a fierce headwind from the president’s camp.
If the one popular called Turaki takes the presidential seat on May 29 next year and survives the lawfare against him, then……
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