January 14, 2015 – Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association(NBA) Mr. Olisa Agbakoba has said that candidate of the All Progressive Congress(APC) General Muhammadu Buhari did not properly fill his form domiciled with the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC), adding that the development is noncompliance that could disqualify the general from contesting the 2015 general election.
Agbakoba said that from the evidence before him he feels General Buhari did not complete the form properly.
“As lawyers we go for evidence, based on the form before me, I do feel that the form has been wrongly filled. I saw in the papers yesterday … but I wished that the certificate was not published so that the distraction will not be there.
“The last thing we want is for General Buhari to be disqualified for none completion of the form. The truth is that he did not complete the form; he put in an affidavit that his certificates are with the army, that is non-compliance, so generally speaking General Buhari has not completed the form correctly”, he said.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria alluded to the time he wanted to run for President of MBA, adding that he took his time to fill the form. “I took my time to fill the form because I knew that not properly filling the form could disqualify me. I had a lawyer by my side”, he said.
He said INEC cannot disqualify Buhari since the Supreme Court overruled the last time it disqualified Atiku Abubakar.
“ I would rather that INEC did not but what I will says is that If INEC sees that the form is not completed, they might then write to the person or not publish the form… If you don’t fill it properly then you have no form. If you did not fill the form properly in accordance with INEC directive then you have not filled the form at all”, he said.
He added: “We are concerned with what the law says, the law says that authenticate your affidavit and you can only authenticate it by attaching originals of your certificates, so if we start by saying that the certificates are not there, we conclude by saying that what will the court make of it”, he said.
