EXPOSED:What exactly is President Muhammadu Buhari’s real age?

President Buhari has always been viewed as a controversial figure by some Nigerians. But none of the controversy surrounding Nigeria’s president has generated so many questions than the ones asked about his academic qualifications. Now a new one has surfaced. The President’s detractors have yet again raised an issue about his real age.

Ever since he declared his intention to run for president, Buhari’s personality has come under close scrutiny. Just before the 2015 presidential elections the opposition said he would not be able to rule due to his age. But the president had declared that his age will not affect his job as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Then at the age of 72, Buhari has the wisdom, the patience, and the temperance that age brings and has brought all these virtues to the presidency to make a difference in our national life. Now after a year in office it seems questions about the President’s age won’t go away.

President Buhari is believed to be 73 years of age, but recently, some news outlets reported that the president received his 1953 classmates at the Aso Rock Villa. But this is 2016 and from 1953 to 2016 is calculated as 63yrs. Those who have made it their duty to calculate the president’s age are questioning if Buhari was 10 years when he attended secondary school as of then.

They have also asked if the president has been lying about his real age. Another awkward situation was on the eve of President Muhammadu Buhari’s 73rd birthday, when a former president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo felicitated with him in what may be described as a Freudian slip. Obasanjo allegedly wished Buhari happy 78th birthday. This further heightened the speculations surrounding President Buhari’s real age.

Could it also have been that Obasanjo knows what the average Nigerian does not know, or is it that his memory is failing him? Quite a number of Nigerians have their reservations about Buhari because of his age, some think he’s too old to be president.

Supporters of the President have defended him by saying it is better to have a man without a certificate than have a doctorate holder who is clueless. Buhari’s academic qualification have also come into focus. It was alleged that the president did not sit for the Cambridge West African School Certificate (WASC) in 1961 as he had earlier claimed.

A High Court sitting in Abuja recently struck out a suit challenging the veracity of the academic credentials of President Buhari. The court’s action effectively put to rest, the controversy surrounding the secondary school certificate of the president, which was a major issue in the 2015 election campaigns.

The opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) used it as a weapon against Buhari and approached the court to disqualify his candidacy. The Army earlier stated that they could not trace President Buhari’s certificate in their records against the claims the he deposited it with the institution. However, after the release of the presidential election results, the Army announced that it had found the certificate.