A rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety) has called for the upgrade of the educational qualification required for one to be a president or governor in Nigeria.
The group which recommended a Masters Degree for people seeking to become governors or president in Nigeria said its proposition were as a result of the recent judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal which upheld President Muhammadu Buhari’s election despite the call to question of his school certificate by his opponent, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
The group in a press statement made available to DAILY POST in Awka, Anambra State and signed by its chairman, board of trustees, Mr Emeka Umeagbalasi said it amounted to racing back into the cave to allow persons with no known educational background to govern the country.
The group said, “It also amounts to racing back to the cave from being the Africa’s cradle of knowledge for Nigeria’s seats of Presidential and Gubernatorial powers to be cheaply and illiterately occupied by persons without physically proven or certified educational certificates or qualifications.
“It is further insulting beyond quantification to the modern day knowledgeable world for the offices of the President and Governor in Nigeria to be allowed to be occupied by persons with ordinary secondary school or primary school certificates-whereas in other social climes, such are occupied by professors and doctorate degree holders with unassailable charisma.”
The group said that it would be wise to raise the educational qualification of governors and the president of the country if it must develop alongside other countries of the world.
“It is, therefore, time to mandatorily, constitutionally and statutorily raise the qualification for the seats of the President and Governor and their deputies in Nigeria to nothing less than Master’s Degree.
“Ignorance and stark illiteracy must never be allowed a space over knowledge and ideas in the country’s corridors of power. As a jurisprudential tradition in the world over, judicial blunders and disasters such as the instant case arising from apex and appellate decided cases are periodically remedied by ways of constitutional amendments or enactment of new laws to take care of such judicial blunders or disasters.
“We hereby call on the National Assembly of Nigeria to act on the above without further delays,” the group said.
