We would not have given Buhari the document if he didn’t apply – WAEC disagrees with presidency

– WAEC has said it presented President Buhari’s results to him after he applied for it

– This is contrary to claims by the presidency that that the president did not apply for it

– We would not have given him the document if he didn’t apply, WAEC spokesman said

As the controversy surrounding President Muhammadu Buhari’s certificate continues, the presidency and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), on Saturday, November 3, disagreed on the reason for the issuance of an Attestation of Results to the president.

According to the presidency, Buhari didn’t apply for the WAEC result which was issued to him on Friday. However, the examination body said the document was issued because the president applied for it.

The senior special assistant on media and publicity to the president, Garba Shehu, had said the initiative to make the documents available to President Buhari was that of the examination body.

Shehu, in an interview with The Punch on Saturday, said WAEC authorities made it clear that they read about the controversy generated by the president’s missing certificate and saw the need to save the council’s integrity.

The presidential spokesman said: “No, the president did not apply for the documents. I made this clear in an opinion I wrote on Friday. The presentation of the documents to the president was strictly an initiative of WAEC.

“They said they read about the controversy on the pages of newspapers and saw the need to save the integrity of the council.”

On its part, WAEC’s spokesman, Damianus Ojijeogu, in an interview said the examination body would not have given the result to the president if he did not apply for it.

He said: “We would not have given him the document if he didn’t apply. It is only Buhari or a court that can ask for the results. There is no other person. So he asked for it.”

WAEC also said it did not issue the attestation of results to Buhari in 2015 because there was no application for it.

The president’s school certificate examination, which was a major controversy in the build-up to the 2015 elections, recently became a matter of public discourse after he told the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that his school certificate is still with military authorities.

Buhari stated this while submitting essential forms to INEC for the 2019 elections, which he would be participating in as the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

However, on Friday evening, the president Tweeted via his official handle that he had received the attestation and confirmation of his result.

But after the result was released, some Nigerians suggested on social media that there was discrepancy in the attestation certificate.

TRACK NEWS had earlier reported that the examination body clarified the alleged discrepancy in the results of the school certificate examination of President Buhari released in 2015 and the results in an “attestation certificate” issued to the president on Friday, November 2.

WAEC explained that in issuing an Attestation of Results to replace a lost or missing WAEC certificate, the subjects, where the candidate had F9, would no longer be captured.