The Presidency Sunday night dissociated President Muhammadu Buhari from any certificate scandal in the country, saying he has none hanging on his neck.

The reaction followed a chronology of certificate scandals rocking various Nigerians in the corridors of power past or present published by a national daily on Sunday.

President Buhari had the albatross on his neck during the 2015 presidential election campaigns to the point that he was almost disqualified to run.

In a statement, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Shehu Garba who was incidentally Director, Media and Publicity of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Committee, APCPCC stated that the issue was a campaign of calumny deliberately launched against Buhari to stop him from contesting.

He said that APCPCC responded by making available Buhari’s credentials which later showed that he was qualified to run for the office of the President.

Shehu said that shortly after Buhari won the election, his challengers either withdrew from the matter or that the matter was struck out from the court.

He therefore urged the newspaper to cross check their facts so as not to mislead members of the public.

The statement read: “We wish to emphatically state that President Muhammadu Buhari does not fit into categorisation of leaders with certificate scandals because he bears none that is on available records.

“In the course of the contest for the office of the President in 2015, a number of wild, untrue and malicious allegations were made against him in order to stop him from contesting for the office in the election.

“The issue of certificates was raised against him but the campaign successfully dealt with the allegations by providing evidence that not only was he qualified to run, he had a far higher academic qualification than is required by the constitution. As a result, he went on to run for the office and eventually won.

“Since the purpose of the challenge was primarily to stop him from being a candidate in that election, the challengers either voluntarily withdrew or abandoned the cases soon after he won and all of them were subsequently struck off by the courts.

“The President has no certificate case hanging on his neck. The Punch editors should kindly update their records to avoid making this repeated mistake.”

Vanguard