The controversy surrounding the school leaving certificates of the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, took another dimension on Tuesday as a legal practitioner, Chike Okafor, approached the Federal High Court, Abuja,seeking his disqualification from contesting the 2015 presidential election.

Relying on Section 131 of the Constitution, which prescribes a minimum qualification for nomination to participate in presidential election and Section 31 of the Electoral Act which requires all presidential candidates to depose to an affidavit indicating that they have complied with constitutional requirement to be President of Nigeria, Okafor claimed that Buhari failed to prove that he had the minimum educational qualification to contest for the election.

Joined in the suit are the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

Okafor also claimed that the APC candidate’s affidavit certifying his West African School Leaving Certificate, WASC, is false while equally  asserting that the claim in his affidavit that his certificates are in the custody of the Nigerian Army had been denied by the Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Olajide Laleye.

Claiming that his action was backed by Section 31(5) of the Electoral Act which allows a person that had reasonable grounds to believe that false information had been given by a candidate in his affidavit or document submitted to the  Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in support of his nomination form, to approach the court for the candidate to be disqualified, Okafor therefore requested the Federal High Court to disqualify General Buhari from contesting  the 2015  presidential election.

The plaintiff averred that “the information contained in Buhari’s affidavit dated November 24, 2014, stating that the Secretary of the Military Board was in custody of his WASSC was false and thereby disqualified him from contesting the 2015 general elections”.

Specifically, Okafor wants the court to compel INEC to remove Buhari’s name from the list of persons eligible to contest for the presidency in the February 14 presidential election.