The ruling PDP on Saturday accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of complicity in shielding the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) General Muhammadu Buhari over his inability to present his academic qualifications to the electoral body as stipulated by both electoral laws and the 1999 constitution.
Addressing a press conference, the Director of the PDP Presidential Campaigns, Femi Fani Kayode said that the inability of Buhari to submit hia academic qualifications to INEC as stipulated is breach of the laws and a threat to the advancement of democracy in Nigeria.
According to Fani Kayode, “The inability of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari, to present even the minimum requirement of just a leaving school certificate questions his moral and other credentials for pursuing the position of the president of Nigeria. The current shocking disclosures bring to the fore how and what qualifications were used to recruit him into the military, without a minimum school leaving certificate, where he rose to the rank of a General and even became the Head of state through a military coup that truncated a democratically-elected government in 1983.
“Beyond the moral burden of human rights abuses and other sundry anti-democratic practices in his public records, we find that even in other spheres of democratic practices and, in particular, on the matter of due processes, his disdain for democratic conduct has not changed. Academic qualification is a threshold issue that cannot be waived for any citizen no matter how highly-placed and irrespective of whichever region such individual comes from except as provided by the constitution.
“Thus the question must be asked; is Buhari or any other citizen qualified to contest election into the office of the president without meeting the minimum constitutional requirement?”
Source: Thisdaylive
