DISGRACED former speaker of the federal House of Representatives, Ibrahim Salisu Buhari, was among the list of newly-appointed members of the governing councils of federal universities announced on Thursday by the President Goodluck Jonathan Administration in Abuja.
The list of the members was made public in an announcement by Mr. Anyim Pius Anyim, Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
The appointment of Mr. Buhari is bound to raise eyebrows in the polity, given his antecedent as a public person who was exposed as the number 4 man in the hierarchy of leadership of Nigeria for only cooking-up his academic qualifications but for also falsifying his age prior to rising to the privileged position as a federal legislator.
Buhari was exposed in 1999 through the tenacious investigative work of journalists at The News, a newsmagazine that had weathered the storm of dictatorship during the General Sanni Abacha years, revealing to a shocked nation that then-Speaker Buhari falsified his age to enable him meet age requirement for the speakership spot.
But the more damning expose had to do with the claim that Buhari attended the University of Toronto, an institution that he never attended at this time. Journalists Dapo Olorunyomi and Kunle Ajibade, both based in the United States at this time, carried out the western end of the investigations that blew the lid on Buhari’s claims, featuring the story in a July 12, 1999 story in The News titled “The Crook in the House.”
Mr. Buhari would later emerge to deny the charge in public, alleging that detractors were at work to tarnish his image as a public person. Specifically, he spoke of The News as a Yoruba media working against his interests as a Hausa-Fulani man. The then-speaker thereafter employed the services of the legal luminary in constitutional law, Chief Rotimi Williams to handle a multi-million naira libel suit on The News.
Other media organizations soon joined in the fight, unfazed by the threats from Mr. Buhari, who employed every means available to suppress the story, including mass purchase of the copies of initial publication that brought the story to national attention.
Salisu Buhari eventually withered under the storm of the media when he addressed the issue frontally, tearing up in public eye and accepting that he indeed lied about his age and academic qualifications. He subsequently resigned from his post as the speaker of the House.
Although he was away from the limelight for quite some time, repeated efforts were made by influential politicians to rehabilitate him.
He has also remained influential in underground politics in his northern base, especially in Kaduna, where he emerged the director-general of President Goodluck Jonathan campaign for president in March of 2011.
Buhari’s appointment therefore is anything but accidental, as he retains a strong influence in the Peoples Democratic Party. His appointment will not go without attracting the kind of criticisms that trailed the prerogative of mercy issued the disgraced former governor of Bayelsa, Diepreye Alamiyeseigha.
The questions are likely to focus on the fact that a public person as Salisu Buhari who perpetrated academic fraud is appointed as member of the governing council of any academic institution, but especially one of the oldest ones as the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, to which he has been appointed.
Other members of the governing councils include former Lagos Police Inspector-General Mike Okiro and at least one other former speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na’Abba.
Also on the list are the former Bauchi governor, Adamu Muazu, former works minister, Adeseye Ogunlewe, and the former sports minister, Taofeek Adedoja. PDP chieftains, John Nwodo, Rufai Alkali . Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu and Tunde Akogun also featured on the list, which included Moremi Soyinka-Onijala the daughter of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka.