BY SURAJ OYEWALE
I have watched with keen interest the new round of controversies that were triggered by supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan on the Social Media over the veracity of the results released by Government College, Katsina. The arguments defy common sense and they are not worth replying in a formal medium like a newspaper OP-ED page. However, seeing that even well respected citizens like a senior lawyer that was on Channels TV the morning of the day the result was published in national dailies, not getting this basic fact, it becomes imperative to offer some explanations to the questions raised. I will take them one by one.
One, that this is a statement of result, not certificate.
Do people know the meaning of certificate at all? Certificate is issued in one copy, and by the examining body, not the school, which is a mere examination center. My WASSCE certificate, issued by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) in 2000, after showing my details, says “having been in attendance of the following recognized school…”. This follows what should be common knowledge that, it is the examining body, not the school, that issues results, and the result is the property of the student, not the school. What the school issues is statement of result which is copied from the result mastersheet also supplied by the examining body to the school, and retained by the school. It is this masterlist that is the property of the school. Of course, schools may – and that is common now – keep photocopies of the certificates for their own records, but that is just a cautionary approach for acknowledgment, it doesn’t override a more compact masterlist which is what is for the school for keeps. And I can pardon a school that did not photocopy the originals of certificates handed to students in 1961 – in a core northern school for that matter, at a time when education was just picking up in that part of the country. Even if copies were kept, it is also pardonable that such results may not be found in 2015. How many public schools can produce 1951 records?
Certificate, it should be noted again, is issued by the examining body, not the school. It is only a statement of result that a school issues, and that is what was published by Buhari’s school. A statement of result can be issued as many times as possible since it is just by copying the information on the masterlist sent to it by the examining body.
Two, that the result carried a 2015, not 1961, date.
Simple: Does anyone expect the current principal to use 1961 as date for a re-issued statement of result? If you completed secondary education 50 years ago and, due to loss of the initial copy you were issued, you applied for another one today, do you expect the current principal to backdate the issue date to 1961? Of course, the current principal could not have been the one that issued the initial copy 50 years ago. Do you expect him to go and invite the principal of the school 50 years ago to come and sign – even if we assume he is alive? Is it not the current principal that will sign? Do you expect the principal in 2015 to backdate to 1961, when he may not even have been born?
Three, why are we seeing A1, B2, B3 etc, a recent grading system, on the published statement?
A1, B2, B3 etc grading system was introduced in 1999. There is what is called template. Every institution or organization has a template for issuing documents, and this evolves overtime. If I lose my WAEC statement of result and go to my secondary school today to apply for another copy, I don’t expect the school to still be using the template it used when the initial copy was issued 14 years ago, today. Do I expect them to go and revert to their old template because of me?
Another analogy: If I apply for my 1994 bank statement in say GTB, do I expect it to look like that I collected in in 1995, when the bank may have changed the format, and all that. Is it not the date of transaction, credit, debit, balance and beneficiaries that are important to me? Why do I have to mandate GTB to use the format they used for me in 1995 for me?
Simple: Buhari’s school has only used the current template it uses in issuing statement of results which has A1, B2, B3 printed somewhere on the side, and doesn’t change the substance of the result.
Four, the result reads Government College, Katsina state but Katsina state was not existing in 1961.
Poor debaters, so if someone that schooled in say Lokoja, old Kwara State, now Kogi state, in the eighties applied for a fresh copy of his statement of result today, the result will read, “ABC College, Lokoja, Kwara State” and the signature will bear 2015!
I guess Union Bank should also be using Barclay’s Bank letterhead if it wants to respond to a 1971 enquiry in 2015. As we say on the Social Media, shaking my head! Five, that the passport used was recent.
The school was issuing another copy of Buhari’s statement of result in 2015, in the currently used template, which requires passport photograph affixed. The school never claimed it was not a 2015 document – it is a 2015 document confirming a 1961 event.
Six, that the result reads “Mohammed Buhari”.
Well, maybe I should also throw away my WAEC-issued o’level certificate despite carrying my picture. After all, the name reads “Oyewale Tunji Surajudheen”, and my official name currently reads “Oyewale, Surajudeen Oyetunji”, which was the spelling I used when I wrote my UME in 2000.
Seven, that Nigerian educational system did not have class 6 in 1961, contrary to what the school claimed.
Another product of poor research. I will just reproduce what Dr. Ogbonaya Onu, former governor of Abia state, said on this: “Many young people don’t know we used to have Form 6. I attended Form 6. I attended higher school that is what it is called then and you spend 2 years at the lower and the upper. You can’t go to Form 6 unless you completed your Form 5 and he got all the credits in the relevant subjects. So all those are in his file.” – (Vanguard, 22 January 2014).
Eight, that Hausa language was not offered as a subject in 1961.
Another lie. An email sent by my friend, Sodiq Alabi, to Cambridge Assessment Archive Service, when the debate was raging on the Social Media, was replied within hours. Responding to Sodiq, Jacky Emerson, Archives Service Delivery Officer of Cambridge Assessment (archives@cambridgeassessment. org.uk), wrote: “Dear Sodiq Alabi, According to the regulations for 1961, African language papers, including those for Hausa were set for West African School Certificate”.
.Oyewale writes from Lagos
