no mind people

Ditto

Nigerians owe a debtof gratitude to two
activist reporters and TheNews magazine
for exposing the fraud that is Andy Uba,
President Olusegun Obasanjo’s erstwhile
senior special assistant for domestic
matters. The cover for this week’s issue of
the magazine is titled“Andy Uba: The
Face Of A Fraud”. The cover’s subtitle
reads: “How He Fooled OBJ For 7 Years”.
Written bythe irrepressible Sowore
Omoyele and the quietly sinewy Ikenna
Ellis-Ezenekwe, the investigative story
reveals that Uba, far from holding a
doctorate degree, does not even possess
an earned first degree.
Omoyele and Ellis-Ezenekwe’s thorough
approach is everywhere in evidence in
their report. The cover’s introduction
pointedly asked: “Who is Andy Uba, the
man campaigning to be governor of
Anambra State?” Then they offered this
damning answer: “New revelations show
that thefavored boy of President
Olusegun Obasanjo has been living a
deceptive life, fooling the President and
parading a chain of academic degrees he
does not have.”
To read the story is to realize how
unimpeachable is the investigative work
that went into it.Its authors went at their
task with an assiduity and
painstakingness rare in the Nigerian
press. Rather than vend a series of
hearsays and unsubstantiated
innuendoes, the duo dug deep, delving
into their subject with the fastidiousness
and dispassion of forensic sleuths. They
wrote, with deadpan factuality, that Uba
“had been parading titles and credentials
he does not have.” Then, with
characteristic directness, they underlined
that “Andy Uba’s educational
background showed he does not have a
Bachelor’s degree in Geology from
Concordia University—a Canadian
institution he claimed to have attended
from 1984.”

Whence came their information? You bet:
from the university itself. “Official
records at Concordia University in
Montreal, Canada indicate that (Uba)
dropped out prior to completing the
requirements for a Bachelor’s degree. The
university’s alumni office of records said
Concordia University has no record of
Uba ever graduating from the school. A
spokesperson for the Advancement and
Alumni Relations Office in Concordia
University said: “We have searched our
record for Mr. Emmanuel Nnamdi Uba
(Andy) and he does not seem to be listed
in the Alumni Banner System.’’
If Uba never receiveda first degree, then
what mustwe make of his claim to
holding a Master’s degree? Sowore and
Ellis-Ezenekwe blew that canard to
pieces. “Our investigations,” they wrote,
“also revealed a wrinkle in Uba’s claim to
having obtained a Master’s degree from
California State University. The official
records obtained from California State
University indicatedthat theformer
1
presidential aide never earned a Masters
from there. In fact,he was never a
graduate student of the said institution.”
Improbable as it may sound, the picture
gets more farcical, since Emmanuel Uba
has been passing himself off as a holder
of a doctorate degree. A man who has
fibbed about his first and second degrees
inspires no trust when he proclaims
himself a possessor of a doctorate. The
report by Sowore and Ellis-Ezenekwe
echoed this verdict. Besides, they
discovered that Buxton University is less
a university than a phantom of sorts. It is
“an unaccredited online degree-awarding
institution with some notoriety for
awarding bogus degrees to clients willing
to pay a set fee.” Derisively dubbed a
“diploma mill,” the so-called university
claims to exist in England, but has its
address in Portugal.
One expert described Buxtonas “a
business that caters to vain clients who
desire to buy hollow insignia of
knowledgewithout facing the rigor of
academic work.” As Sowore and EllisEzenekwe reported, “Yet another source
put it bluntly: ‘If Uba is claiming to have
a Ph.D from Buxton, then he is simply
flaunting an overpriced, worthless piece
of paper he purchased with cash.’”
Even if Emmanuel Uba were not seeking
public office, his lies regarding his
academic credentials would still strike us
as revelatory of a profounder flaw in
character. Given his profile as one of
Obasanjo’s most trusted confidantes, and
his active pursuit of an ambition to “rule”
Anambra, his certificate scandals serve as
warning of a far graverdefect in the man.
If the man’s certificates are non-existent;
if his diplomas are fraudulent; if, indeed,
he has deliberately misrepresented his
educational attainments, then we are
entitled to entertain the question whether,
upon scrutiny, any aspect of the man’s
life is likely to hold up. In other words, is
there anything remotely authentic about
this man’s public persona, or is he, quite
simply, fraud personified?

I am willing to hedge my betson the
latter proposition.On the strength of
Uba’s response to the expose in
TheNews, there is ample reason to hold
him in suspicion. Invitedby the
magazine’s editors to authenticate his
certificate claims, Uba waffled. Unable to
rise to the weekly’s challenge, he chose to
launch a preemptive offensive that
exploited the gullibility and greed-driven
corruption of some Nigerian reporters.
He decided to plant stories, dripping
with jejune persecution claims, in several
newspapers.
The Sunday Sun (of December 10) was
one of several newspapers that fell, sadly,
for the bait. The paper, whose editors
should be more vigilant, carried a bizarre
headline: “Fresh plot against Uba
uncovered”. Riddled with grammatical
gaffes, the report opened in a mode that
betrayed its provenance: The “intrigues
that are associated with politics in
Nigeria have continued to play out just
few months to the general elections. One
of those at the receiving endof this kind
of intrigues is of Andy Uba, the former
Senior Special Assistant on Domestic
Affairs to President Olusegun Obasanjo.”
Quoting afictional “National Association
of Anambra Indigenes,” the paper alleged
there was a campaign by Uba’s
“detractors” to “tarnish his image ahead
of the 2007 gubernatorial election in
which he isa leading candidate.”
2
Then this: “However, the (Uba) group is
alleging that there are fresh plots to link
Andy to an insurance scam in the USA.
This is in additiontothe allegation that
Andy did not complete his secondary
school education and therefore, has no
certificate. The coordinator of the Andy
Uba Support Group confirmed that ‘there
are plots to rubbish Andy in the media.’
According to him the allegationsmaking
rounds that he did not complete
secondary education is false. Azubuko
noted that the governorshipcandidate
completed his education up to the Ph D,
which is well known by all. He said the
group was in custody of all the education
certificates of Dr. Andy and that it would
make it public whenever the need arises.”
It was vintage Uba, this faith that a lie can
be made into a truth if reporters are
bribed enough to print or broadcast it.
Alas, neither Uba nor his men could
furnish the magazine with
incontrovertible proof that he is,
academically speaking, the man he claims
to be. Instead, he resorted to the
desperate measure of buying the
magazine’s entire print-run to ensure that
Nigeriansdid not read about his
certificate fraud. Bayo Onanuga, the
magazine’s editor-in-chief, alerted
readers to “the disappearance of the
current edition of TheNEWS magazine
from the newsstands.” He explained that
“all thecopies of TheNEWS meant for
distribution nationwide were bought off
the distributing agents by some men
working for Andy Uba. We suspect that
those copiesmust have been destroyed.”
In exposing Uba’s lies to public gaze,
TheNews has done a patrioticservice.
Nigerians are now alerted to the character
of the manthe president entrusted with
his dearest domestic affairs. Thanks to the
weekly magazine, Nigerians know that
their president craves the company of
frauds and poseurs. Armed with the
president’s blessing, presidential jets,
inexhaustible cash (of questionable
source) and the intimidating arsenal of
mobile police and thugs, Uba last week
“won” his party’s governorship
nominationwith 97 percent of the votes.
But Uba’s emerging portrait is more
tattered than anybody ever suspected.
There is no way the people of Anambra
will accept such a certifiable impostor as
their governor. Not even with all of the
ruling party’s rigging skills at his service.
As one Anambra politician told me a few
days ago, “If Obasanjo likes theman he
named Andy so much, he’s welcome to
employ him to run his farm. But he won’t
smell Anambra’s governor’s seat.”
3their president craves the company of
frauds and poseurs. Armed with the
president’s blessing, presidential jets,
inexhaustible cash (of questionable
source) and the intimidating arsenal of
mobile police and thugs, Uba last week
“won” his party’s governorship
nominationwith 97 percent of the votes.
But Uba’s emerging portrait is more
tattered than anybody ever suspected.
There is no way the people of Anambra
will accept such a certifiable impostor as
their governor. Not even with all of the
ruling party’s rigging skills at his service.
As one Anambra politician told me a few
days ago, “If Obasanjo likes theman he
named Andy so much, he’s welcome to
employ him to run his farm. But he won’t
smell Anambra’s governor’s seat.”

JAGANBAN BOGUL is not only Asiwaju of Lagos but Asiwaju of Yoruba land now confirmed. The only thing I love this man for is all his subordinates, the likes of Fayemi, Aregbesola, Fasola, Oshiomole, Ajimobi, Gbajabiamila etc. Tinubu works with technocrats that can turn the world arounds. Unlike your Baba who failed to find a good successor only to call "Umoru are you died" Thumbs up to Jagaban SW is leading and most peaceful now in Nigeria because there are infrastructural developments going on. This is the work of Asiwaju boys.

E tire me ooo

Environer:
How did Tinubu, a COMPLETE fraud, become Yoruba Asiwaju?

Go home and ask