Buhari’s certificate controversy needless and simply unnecessary – Onu

The Chairman, All Progressives Congress Presidential Screening Committee, Chief Ogbonnaya Onu, has described the controversy over the certificate of the party’s presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, (retd), as unnecessary.Onu spoke to reporters in Abuja on Wednesday.He explained that his committee screened the presidential candidate in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), and found him worthy to seek the party’s nomination.He said that the APC committee found the affidavit deposed to by the former Head of State as sufficient and in conformity with the laws of the land.He also argued that the fact that the APC candidate went to secondary school and attended several military schools at home and abroad was not in dispute.Onu said, “Really, that issue shouldn’t create the kind of problem that we are seeing today in the polity. When this matter came before us in the presidential screening committee, we had to rely on the constitution of our great country. You have to be a Nigerian by birth, he has to be 40 years of age; he has to be a member of a political party and that political party should sponsor you and finally should obtain education, at least, up to secondary school level or equivalent.”He said in the case of Buhari, “Our presidential candidate has attended military schools in Nigeria, in India, in the United Kingdom and in the United States of America. He attended the US Army War College. So, there isn’t any reason whatsoever to create this type of problems that we now have in the polity.”In response to a question on whether the APC screening committee requested for the copies of the certificate in question, Onu replied, “We demanded for that but there was an affidavit and you know once you swear to an affidavit, that definitely gives you whatever protection in any matter not just in this case.”He accused the ruling Peoples Democratic Party of making a mountain out of a mole hill because the Nigerian constitution was superior to any other operational law in the nation.He maintained that such practices were common in the 60s and ought not to be an issue and that what should be of concern to Nigerians should be how to get the nation out of the mess it had found itself as a result of misrule.

punch