Buhari’s certificate: Lawyer withdraws suit, over threat to life

A legal practitioner, Mr. Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe, has filed a notice at the Federal High Court in Abuja to discontinue the suit he instituted seeking the disqualification of President Muhammadu Buhari for lack of certificate.

Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe had alleged that Buhari was not qualified to aspire for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because he did not sit for the Cambridge West African School Certificate (WASC) in 1961 as he claimed.

The notice of discontinuance dated June 27 and obtained by THISDAY, read: 

“Take note that the plaintiff in this originating summons, Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe, hereby discontinues this action.”

THISDAY checks revealed that following the withdrawal of the suit from court, the trial judge, Justice Ademola Adeniyi will today sit and accordingly strike out the case.

Though Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe did not give any reason for withdrawing the case from court, THISDAY gathered that it might not be unconnected with alleged threats to his life and members of his family.

In an interview with THISDAY last month, Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe had alleged that there were some subtle threats on him to withdraw the case from court.

He had said: Of course, I am concerned and my family and friends are too; I am not naïve and some subtle threats have already been made. 

“For now it is small comfort that if anything happens to me, even if disguised as an accident or anything, Nigerians will know exactly who is responsible.

“In any case, it was Professor Wole Soyinka, I think, who once said in one of his books that ‘The Man Dies in Him Who Keeps Quiet in The Face of Tyranny’ or something of the sort. 

“Speaking of which, I am amazed at the conspiracy of silence by Nigerians. 

“It is astounding is it not, that in the light of this very apparent rape of our constitution, laws, indeed the very essence of our democracy, all of our civil society advocates and activists have gone deaf and dumb in the face of tyranny.

“All those voluble persons (and I don’t want to name them; they know themselves and Nigerians know them too), who pretend they are activists or keepers of the moral conscience of the nation astonishingly can’t see or appreciate what is happening. 

“This country really misses Chief Gani Fawehinmi.

“He was the only fearless, credible, true and genuine conscience of the nation, not the pretenders we have today.

“All the others only make noise when it suits them and their interests but look the other way once they are compromised. 

“None of us today can tie Gani’s shoe-laces.”

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