Official spokesperson of the President Buhari 2019 Presidential Campaign, and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Festus Keyamo, is claiming that based on the Nigerian Constitution, an aspirant does not need a WAEC certificate to become a president or governor in the country.
\nBut the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not impressed. It is asking President Muhammadu Buhari to tender his own since he claims he has one. He should do so to the “Presidential Election Petition Tribunal instead of allowing his campaign spokesperson, Festus Keyamo, to insult the sensibility of Nigerians with lame attempt at diversionary tactics”.
\nOn Monday, Keyamo had stated on his verified Twitter handle \u201cThere are other levels of qualifications to run for the office of president. In fact, if you have occupied the public office for a reasonable length of time, by the provisions of the Constitution, you do not even need a WAEC certificate to become president of Nigeria.
\n\u201cYes. Section 318 of the 1999 Constitution defines \u2018School Certificate or its equivalent\u2019 to mean Primary 6 School Leaving Certificate plus the ability to just speak, write, understand and communicate in English language to the satisfaction of INEC. No WAEC certificate is needed.
\n\u201cBy the definition of \u2018School Certificate or its equivalent\u2019 in Section 318 of the 1999 Constitution, you don\u2019t need a WAEC certificate to become President or Governor, but if you present a FORGED WAEC or other certificate to INEC for any office you will be disqualified. #OsunStateScenario.\u201d
\nIn a statement on Monday evening, “PDP spokesman, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan said: The party also calls on Nigerians to note that in claiming that an aspirant does not need WAEC certificate, but the ability to speak English, to contest for the office of the President, the Buhari Presidency, through Festus Keyamo, has finally admitted that President Buhari does not have a WAEC certificate as he claimed in his INEC form.
\n“The PDP says it is completely inexcusable for President Buhari to swear to an affidavit to claim an educational qualification he does not possess.
\n“An attempt to deceive the public using a defective reading and skewed interpretation of a section of the constitution cannot exonerate President Buhari.”
\nBut Keyamo earlier tweeted, \u201cWAEC has confirmed the authenticity of PMB\u2019s certificate by issuing an attestation of it. Case closed.
\n\u201cIn Osun case scenario, WAEC has denied the authenticity. See the difference?
\nKeyamo noted that it was \u201cextremely foolish\u201d for anybody who is not statutorily empowered to issue WAEC certificates to challenge the body that has the statutory power to issue certificates.
\n\u201cLet me end my free lecture series by saying that the crux of the matter is that if you don\u2019t have a WAEC certificate, there\u2019s no need to go ahead and forge one in a bid to be governor or president.
\n“You can still be qualified, regardless. That\u2019s the mistake made in Osun case scenario,\u201d
\nFor PDP, Section 295 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is very clear on issues of interpretations and reference to questions of law.
\nIt maintains that the onus is on President Buhari, as \u2018Mr. Integrity\u2019 to tender the certificate he claims to possess before the tribunal instead of this lame diversion from Presidential aides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Official spokesperson of the President Buhari 2019 Presidential Campaign, and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Festus Keyamo, is claiming that based on the Nigerian Constitution, an aspirant does not need a WAEC certificate to become a president or governor in the country. But the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not impressed. It is asking President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}