At the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja today, Vice President Kashim Shettima had a chance to explain why Nigerians are struggling to afford fuel, transport and food. Instead, he mocked Atiku Abubakar for attending the Kano School of Hygiene. Faced with the cost of living crisis, this government’s Vice President attacked a man’s school.

What, exactly, is shameful about Atiku’s education? He completed secondary school, pursued further training and built a life through work. Millions of Nigerians have travelled the same road. Their parents sacrificed to get them into the schools they could afford; they studied, worked and rose. Shettima looked at that struggle and saw something to laugh at.

If Shettima wants to examine school records, he should begin with the man he serves. A document in Bola Tinubu’s Chicago State University records lists him as having graduated from Government College Lagos in 1970, four years before the school was established in 1974. Shettima should explain how a man graduates from a school before it exists, instead of mocking Atiku for attending a school whose doors were open.

Then there is the question of names. The NYSC certificate Tinubu submitted to INEC bears the name “Tinubu Bola Adekunle.” Atiku has challenged that discrepancy in court. Shettima cannot ridicule Atiku’s documented schooling while refusing to address questions about the name on his principal’s certificate.

Tinubu’s Chicago State University documents are also still the subject of litigation in the United States. The questions raised about documents submitted for his election must be answered on their own terms. Insulting Atiku’s school will not make them disappear.

Nor can Shettima pretend that the documented 1993 forfeiture in Chicago, arising from a narcotics investigation, has never raised questions. A separate U.S. case concerning the release of records from that historical investigation remains a matter of public interest.

Shettima says Atiku wants Nigerians to “backslide into penury.” Back from where? The World Bank estimates that nearly seven in ten Nigerians will live below its lower middle income poverty line in 2026, while 35 million people face acute food insecurity. Poverty is not a future threat to these families. It is the life they are struggling through today.

A parent choosing between transport to work and food for the children does not need Shettima to explain penury. His remark shows how far this government has drifted from the people it serves.

Atiku has proposed a targeted, capped and independently audited subsidy tied to petrol refined in Nigeria. If Shettima thinks it cannot be funded, he should show his figures and offer a better way to lower prices. Insulting Atiku will not fill a cooking pot, pay a bus fare or put fuel in a tank.

Atiku has nothing to be ashamed of. He walked through the doors of the Kano School of Hygiene, studied, worked and rose. The shame belongs to Shettima, who stood before a nation weighed down by hunger and chose to laugh at honest education.

After three and a half years in the saddle, Nigerians have seen the bitter consequences of allowing a man with a forged education to become President. Tinubu is an error the Nigerian electorate made in 2023, and on January 16, 2027, the whole country will be impatient to correct that error.

Shettima and Bola may be too far removed from ordinary homes to hear the anger building inside them. Those homes will have a voice at the ballot box. Nigerians will answer the Vice President’s mockery and his boss’s record with their votes. Shettima and Bola will be beaten by the very people they have stopped listening to.

Signed:

Phrank Shaibu

Director of Strategic Communication

ADC Presidential Campaign Council

26th October 2026