The Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima has berated former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri for daring him to present his WAEC certificate.
Trouble started when Shettima described Jonathan on Thursday as a clueless leader and an ‘unsophisticated country person’ while speaking at the launch of a book, “On a Platter of Gold: How Jonathan won and lost Nigeria,” authored by spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bolaji Abdullahi.
Displeased by Shettima’s assertion, Omokri challenged the governor to publish his WAEC certificate alongside that of President Muhammadu Buhari since he described Jonathan as simpleton.
Reacting to Omokri’s remark, Shettima’s spokesperson, Isa Gusau said it’s embarrassing that WAEC results obtained before adulthood is being used to argue about the “leadership capacity of 60-year-old Jonathan, whose 16 years of service as Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President and President should have been sufficient to prove those claimed distinctions.”
In a statement he signed and sent to DAILY POST, Gusau said, “I just couldn’t imagine why Mr Reno Omokri chose to embarrass President Goodluck Jonathan by using WAEC result obtained before adulthood to argue about leadership capacity when in actual sense, those seven distinctions he claimed the former President obtained as a teenager, should have become evident in his reasoning and actions within the 16 years he served as Deputy Governor and Governor in Bayelsa State from 1999 to 2007 and the years he served as Vice President and President from 2007 to 2015 as a senior adult.
“In leadership, intelligence and capacity are never claimed, they prove themselves. It is really a joke for Mr Reno Omokri, whom I thought was smart, to have even cited those results. If he must discuss academics, I would have expected him to discuss scholarly contributions from President Jonathan’s Masters Degree and PHD research works, with evidence of publication in any academic journal, to show how the former President is improving education from his works as an adult and not as WAEC-writing teenager.
“It is really a big joke to use pre-adulthood WAEC in discussing the capacity of a 60-year-old statesman and I will never support 50-year-old Governor Kashim Shettima getting involved in trading jokes. It is not in Governor Shettima’s character to boast about knowledge but should Reno insist, he is free to do a deep and factual reflection on Shettima’s handling of affairs in Borno State, he is free to talk to objective public affairs analysts and Reno is again free, to find out about Governor Shettima’s background from his secondary school, the University of Maiduguri where he had his first Degree and was retained as lecturer, from University of Ibadan where he obtained his Masters Degree or he can just ‘Google search’ to find testimonies of Mr Jim Ovia about Kashim Shettima’s records of performance at the Zenith Bank.
“Meanwhile, Mr Reno is reminded that Governor Shettima’s remarks about Jonathan have never been personal. Assessment on Jonathan’s capacity is a popular one from Nigeria and abroad and if Jonathan lacked capacity as most believe, Governor Shettima bore the most of that lack because his state, Borno, faced the most difficult challenges and he alone knows how frustrated he might have been seeing that little was done to save the situation.”
