A former National Chairman of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, said on Wednesday that the All Progressive Congress Presidential Screening Committee cleared the party’s presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in compliance with the constitution.

He told a select group of journalists at his Abuja residence that the Nigerian Constitution and the Electoral Act stipulates that anybody contesting the presidential election must be a Nigerian by birth, must be 40 years of age, must be a member of a political party that must sponsor him for the election and have at least, a secondary school certificate or its equivalent.

Onu, who headed the APC screening committee that cleared Buhari to contest the party primaries where he defeated former vice president Atiku Abubakar and three others, said people have consistently ignored the operational word in the constitution.

“Really, that issue should not create the type of problem we are seeing in the polity. This matter came before us in the Presidential Screening Committee and we had to rely on the constitution of the country. To qualify to be president of the country, you have to be a Nigerian by birth, you have to be 40 years of age, you have to be a member of a political party and that party should sponsor you and finally, you should obtain education of at least secondary school certificate level or its equivalent.

” We have a man who had attended military schools in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, in India and in the United States of America and in America, he attended the U.S Army War college. So, there isn’t any reason to create this type of problem we now have in the polity.

“As part of the screening, we demanded for a copy of the certificate, but there was an affidavit and once you swear to an affidavit, it gives you whatever protection you need and not just on this issue.

“We were not doing this for this opposition, we were doing it for Nigeria. This is a man who will be President of Nigeria and there is a supreme law which is the constitution that guides us.
“The issue of qualification is at least, school certificate. So, If there is evidence that somebody has attended military schools that are tertiary institutions in lauding the war college of the United States of America, why should you be going into the issue of school certificate and so on?

“The Army has shown that he applied in form six. Many of you don’t know that we use to have form six. I attended higher schools. That is what it was called and you spend two years and you can’t go to form six unless you have completed your form five and obtain the relevant credits in the relevant subjects.

“All these are in his file, and so, I really don’t see why we should be thinking in this direction because the problems before the nation are enormous. We should be looking at how do we solve the problem of insecurity in a country that is the largest and most populous black nation in the world, the largest economy in Africa and you have flags that are unknown to the constitution flying in our territory. That is a very serious challenge for the nation.

“We have unemployment, we have an economy that has not been managed properly. I am a chemical engineer and it pained me that for 16 years, we abandoned our refineries and import petroleum products. We are the sixth largest exporters of crude oil in the world. Then we import refined petroleum products. You have all these chemical engineers and so, what else do you need? We have four refineries and we can’t even keep them running for 16 years. This is very disturbing.”


http://thenationonlineng.net/new/2015-cleared-buhari-election-onu/

temitemi1:
Failbuhari 14 is gonna be all abt GEJ... GEJ till 2019!!!

olu77:
Don't mind FFK, the gay political prostitute and his boss. GMB is over qualified. What is the essence of Phd when you can't even define a world as simple as corruption and neither your wife nor your audience of clueless advisers can help when you choose to use your lifelines

dre11:


GEJ robot
When are you going to change the program that was feed to you by ur oga

kingphilip:

and somebody trying to correct a mistake is making a mistake my kid sis wouldn't have made

olu77:


You got me there. You must be PDP no doubt

kingphilip:

me PDP? taar
I'm neither apc nor PDP

I just de observe the useless politics jare

olu77:


Lol. I was more of an observant too before I decided we need change. Try to vote for Buhari o. You hear?

kingphilip:

is everybody no longer entitled to his own opinion? he was supporting a course which he feels is right and u are calling him a robot?

Hw about I call u a GMB robot?