Former spokesman of the Nigerian Army, Brigadier-General Olajide Laleye, has been sacked from service for the role he played in the controversy surrounding the school leaving certificate of President Muhammadu Buhari in the events leading up to the 2015 general election.
Recall that Laleye held a press conference then where he disclosed that the Army could not find Buhari’s West African School Certificate Examination result. This was after the then ruling People’s Democratic Party accused Buhari, a retired Major General, of not having the basic academic qualification for candidates vying to be President – a secondary school leaving certificate. Buhari was then the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC).
A source in the army said Laleye was a marked man the moment President Buhari assumed leadership of Nigeria.
“The Buhari camp and elements within the army sympathetic to him were incensed by Laleye’s press conference. It was clear he was not going to be let off easy if the APC won the election. The present decision is not at all surprising, ” the source said.
Spokesperson of the Army, Colonel Sani Usman who revealed the development to a leading Nigerian newspaper also added that among other senior officers retired is Brigadier General Aliyu Momoh who was accused of complicity in an alleged rigging of the 2014 governorship election in Ekiti State.
Momoh’s career was terminated after a report of a military panel that investigated the alleged unprofessional conduct of officers and soldiers during the elections in Ekiti and Osun State indicted him alongside other soldiers.
Chaired by Major General Adeniyi Oyebade, the panel recommended the compulsory retirement of two officers from the army and the placing of 15 officers on watch list while nine others were to be handed over to the Economic and Financial Crime Commission for further investigations.
Source: Nigerian Times