The registration certificate of Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), and other socio-cultural groups in the country have been withdrawn by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
According to the Nigerian Tribune, Garba Abubakar, the registrar general of CAC, revealed this over the weekend in Abuja. Abubakar went on to note that the measure was taken as part of the commission’s reforms that are being put in place to subject applications from groups to thorough scrutiny due to security threats.
The registrar-general also added that CAC’s reforms were put together to sanitize the commission’s operations which lead to the withdrawal of the certificate issued to Ohaneze earlier, adding that it should never have been issued.
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The registration certificate of Ohanaeze Ndigbo has been withdrawn by CAC. Photo credits: The Nation/UGC Source: UGC Abubakar said all organizations whether ethnic or religious should get security clearance before such groups are registered. He also stated that ACF up until now has not been registered because they were not granted a security clearance.
He said: “We have an established protocol that all organisations; ethnic, religious with political implication should be referred for security clearance before such organisations are registered. “What we have done after withdrawing the certificate (of Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly), we now referred the application for security clearance, if at the end of the day we are advised that this object is consistent with what the law says, and the trustees are fit and proper, then we will go ahead, but till then, we have withdrawn the certificate and they have threatened to go to court, we are lawyers, we will meet them in court.”
The new group led by one Basil Onuorah is known as the Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly (ONGA). Onuorah said the group has already been registered by the corporate affairs commission. He stated that the traditional ruler of Igbariam in Anambra state, Igwe Kelly Nzekwe, is serving as the ONGA’s board of trustees chairman. But the mainstream Ohanaeze Ndigbo said the splinter group was out destabilize the Igbo region. Chief Damian Okeke -Ogene, who spoke on behalf of the mainstream Ohanaeze Ndigbo described the splitter group as jokers.