79 candidates vie for presidency
1,803 contest for 109 senatorial seats
4,548 go for 350 federal constituencies
Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the president and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari has submitted his form to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) without attaching his academic credentials.
INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu said at a press conference on Friday in Abuja revealed that 79 political parties had submitted names of their presidential candidate.
The chairman also said aside the 79 presidential candidates, 89 parties fielded 1,803 candidates for the 109 senatorial seats and 4,548 for the 350 federal constituencies.
The chairman promised to make available a breakdown of the different candidates and the parties they represent.
Some of the presidential candidates include Buhari, former vice president, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Obadiah Mailafia of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and the former governor of Cross River State, Mr. Donald Duke of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
It was gathered that the credentials of the various party candidates were made available to journalists
However, Buhari failed to attach the essential supporting documents; instead he attached a sworn affidavit to the effect that the credentials are still with military.
In the affidavit which he swore to, the president said: “I am the above named person and the deponent of this affidavit herein. All my academic qualification documents as filled in my Presidential form, APC/001/2015 are currently with the secretary of the military board as of the time of this affidavit.”
It would be recalled that the military had, in 2014 denied being in possession of the president’s credentials.
“Records available indicate that Major General M Buhari applied to join the military as a Form Six student of the Provincial Secondary School, Katsina on 18 Oct 61.
“His application was duly endorsed by the principal of the school, who also wrote a report on him and recommended him to be suitable for a military commission.
“It is a practice in the NA that before candidates are shortlisted for commissioning into the officers’ cadre of the service the selection board verifies the original copies of credentials that are presented. However, there is no available record to show that this process was followed in the 1960s,” said the former army spokesman Olajide Olaleye in 2014.
For his part, Atiku submitted all relevant documents, with a Diploma in Law in 1969 from the Ahmadu Bello University being his highest qualification.
He also attached tax returns indicating that he paid N10.8 million in tax between 2015 and 2017 while declaring his income within the period as N60.2 million.
