We don’t have time for frivolous issues – Foreign Affairs Minister reacts to Tinubu’s certificate saga

Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Yusuf Tuggar, says the
present administration does not have time to waste on ‘frivolous issues’
following controversy surrounding President Bola Tinubu’s claim of having
attended and obtained a certificate from Chicago State University (CSU) in the
United States of America.

While appearing on Channels TV Sunrise Daily programme on
Wednesday, Tuggar stated that the certificate saga has had no effect on the
recent international engagements of President Tinubu, adding that the issue ‘is
a distraction’.

His words: “There is a tendency to always try to distract
and detain people on such frivolous issues as opposed to facing the major
issues of development. We don’t have time to waste on that.

“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 actually questioning whether he went
to secondary school or not. Someone who had classmates was the captain; he was
a head boy.

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

Tuggar also stated that Nigerians should be focused on the
economic challenges in the country presently and not on the certificate.

“The economic challenges we are facing – we shouldn’t be
wasting time about whether 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
said.

Recall that the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP), Atiku Abubakar, had requested that President Bola Tinubu’s academic
records be made available by Chicago State University (CSU) in an application
to the US District Court in Northern Illinois.

The documents were released to Atiku’s legal team on Monday
by the university after a United States court ordered that the academic records
of President Tinubu be released.