Buhari, the imaginative clone and human genetics

BY AJAYI BOROFFICE

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t like to involve myself in the nauseating debate about the rumoured cloning of President Muhammadu Buhari and the imaginative Jibril Aminu of Sudan because it is rubbish in the face of scientific realities.

As a Nigerian who bagged Ph.D degree in Human Genetics in congenital malformations arising from chromosomal aberrations in 1975 and had Post-Doctoral Research in mutagenesis and carcinogenesis, I consider myself as competent to comment on the needless controversy.

For a 75 years old adult to be cloned, a living cell must be obtained and subjected to some manipulations that will convert it to totipotent cell. The totipotent cell will now undergo embryological development that will produce a young human fetus.

It should be noted that for the fetus to grow and become a replica to a 75 years adult, it will take 75 years to grow.

It must also be said that the phynotypical presentation of a man is a product of interaction between his genotype and the environment.

Therefore, for the clone to look like the same man, it must be exposed to the exact environment for a period equivalent to 75 years.

It is therefore ridiculous for anybody to think Mr President has been cloned and that the person who is the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a clone from Sudan.

Instructively, I have had opportunity to have one-on-one interactions with Mr President before he took ill and after his recovery, there is nothing to suggest that Nigeria is governed by a clone of President Muhammadu Buhari.

I will therefore appeal to Nigerians to stop making insinuations and statements that ridicule our beloved country in the global scientific world.

Boroffice is the senator representing Ondo north senatorial district