Certificate Saga: We pay no mind to that – Tuggar

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has said it does not have time to waste on “trivial matters” surrounding President Bola Tinubu’s academic records from the Chicago State University (CSU), 

Tuggar, stated this on Wednesday during his appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily noting that the controversy does not cast a shadow on some of the president’s recent international engagements.

“There is a tendency to always try to distract people on such frivolous issues as opposed to facing the major issues of development. We don’t have time to waste on that,” he said.

“Nobody is wasting time about certificate qualification for somebody who has been a governor of a state, served two terms, and has been on the national stage as a politician.

“You remember that (former) President Buhari had to go through the same thing, where people were questioning whether he went to secondary school or not. Someone who had classmates and was the captain? He was a head boy,” he said.

The minister asserted that, amidst Tinubu’s recent global engagements, there has been a conspicuous lack of attention to the controversy.

“The foreign leaders that we’ve been engaging and the international organizations are disinterested in wasting time on such.

“We pay no mind to that,” Tuggar stated.

He emphasized that given the dire state of affairs in the country, it is essential for Nigerians to prioritize development over certification.

“With the economic challenges we are facing, we shouldn’t be wasting time on some certificate; whether there is a T missing or an I hasn’t been dotted. That shouldn’t be our primary focus at the moment,” he argued.

His comment follows Atiku Abubakar’s demand for Tinubu’s credentials from the US varsity, which he intends to use to support his argument that Tinubu forged a certificate he claimed to have obtained from CSU in 1979 and submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), for the 2023 presidential election.