Certificate controversy: Why we cleared Buhari –Onu

Chairman of Pres­idential Screen­ing Committee of All Progres­sives Congress (APC), Ogbonnaya Onu has ex­plained why the committee cleared General Muham­madu Buhari for party’s primary.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja, yesterday, Onu submitted that Buhari was cleared strictly on the provi­sions of the 1999 Constitu­tion (as amended).
He declared that the af­fidavit produced by Buhari during the screening exercise provided every conviction needed to clear him.
The former national chair­man declared that the person of Buhari, who had hitherto attended many military in­stitutions both at home and abroad before rising to the pinnacle of his career in the Nigeria Army, could not have done so without passing his examinations at primary school level.
Lambasting the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the controversy generated by the issue of the certificate, Onu wondered why the cer­tificate had suddenly been made an issue even when Buhari had contested previ­ous elections without hitches.
He said: “Really that issue should not 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 to qualify anybody to be president of Nigeria. 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 must sponsor you and finally should obtain education at least up to secondary school level or equivalent.