From Dino Melaye to Andy Uba, who degrees epp?
For weeks, I have been regaled with the unholy tantrums of jealous people in the media who are trying to pull down the beautiful house of sputum inhabited by my very distinguished sinnator, Dino Melaye. I have resisted being drawn into the fray because you can’t wrestle with a pig without being splashed with mud. […]
For weeks, I have been regaled with the unholy tantrums of jealous people in the media who are trying to pull down the beautiful house of sputum inhabited by my very distinguished sinnator, Dino Melaye. I have resisted being drawn into the fray because you can’t wrestle with a pig without being splashed with mud.
There is a truth in the fact that Dino is at home with his peers! With still unanswered questions the caravan of investigation has moved to another Tartuffe in the upper house – Dr. Andy Uba. One sounds like a broken record saying that our system is broken. Fraudulent titles were to have been unearthed before candidates were presented to the electorate, not after impostors have earned more mileage to their life-lie! Who verified Dino and Uba’s certificates or were they camels that passed through the eye of the security needle?
In our quest to focus on the fripperies of the few individuals who have buried their heads in the sand presumes that we are trying to protect our morality from being eroded by deviants – no sir! Deviants control the system and have erected barriers against anything that questions their stranglehold on society. How would a proper Harvard graduate or a true PhD holder perform when pitched against Dino or Uba in contests predetermined by access to the distribution of stomach infrastructure? How many times have we elected Barabbas and ordered Jesus to be crucified in our electoral process? Shame is a virtue of the truly honourable; he strives to protect himself from being brought to shame at all costs. The rogue has nothing to lose and no integrity to protect, shame increases his popularity. This is why there are less saints in our kind of politics; the fear of losing to a rogue leaves a psychological trauma from which it is difficult to recover.
In other lands, a Dino or Uba honourably resigns and fizzle out of public office but I won’t be surprised to hear that Dino has ‘won’ another reelection and waxed a record to ridicule his traducers or that Andy Uba becomes the next governor of his state. As we say here – who certificate don epp? If a man with NEPA bills can contest as president, what’s the fuss about fake degrees? Who certificate don epp?
Dino has increased his popularity ratings because Harvard had to deploy American taxpayer’s money and time to search through its archives for nothing. Andy Uba is unfazed and both men have chains of titles, admirers and mentees, some of us envy them but we won’t trade places with them. Every empty headed participant in a Harvard workshop claims to have graduated because in Naija, you are nothing without a title! You get a GCON or GCFR simply by being elected President or vice. No thought is given to how you might end up or what you have to add!
It’s been long since the academic gown has gone rogue. It started with children leaving crèche wearing them with pride and being showcased by their degree-earning parents. It lost its allure when apprentice tailors wear them to celebrate their ‘freedom’. This is the kind of thing that would have forced the late Bamidele Aturu to ditch his academic gown on graduation day. In a society where people are nothing without titles and where titles shore up the level of acceptance, it’s a tug of war trying to get one.
Anyone who has ever passed through the Naija ivory tower understands how difficult it is to get anything authenticated – including certificates and transcripts. Across the world, records are kept and electronically accessible, but in a country where grades are sexually transmitted and students bribe teachers to shore up their marks, fixing transcripts or academic records is the exclusive preserve of the highest bidder. In 2017, Naija universities send transcripts on electronic typewriters, an improvement on the Milwaukee invention of 1867.
Propelled elites are the best mirrors of any society. For ten grueling months of my sojourned at the NASS as legislative aide, the familiar refrain from the puffy members of that chamber when presented with ideas superior to their level of thinking is- are you a sinnator? Have you ever won an election? In New York City, Sam Amadi (who by the way earned a proper doctorate degree in law) had to tell Dalhatu Sarki Tafida, that legislative aides are experts in other callings who qualify for elective office if they so choose and that the requirement for senate is attempted school certificate.
We have a long way to go if we must fix Naija. As presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu confessed, corruption is fighting back everywhere you go. Corruption is sitting on the throne, surrounded by sleaze and propped up by immorality. It daily dares anyone with a higher morale to keep quiet or show up and be crushed. Titles are for sale and everyone is in the business of hawking them – from hungry traditional ruiners to journalists and their unions. When gold rusts, who is shocked by the corrosion of the iron?