Reps Move To Make University Degree Mandatory For Presidential Candidates, Others

The House of Representatives on Tuesday began the process of amending the constitution to raise the educational qualification for election into the office of the president.

The bill sponsored by Mr Adewunmi Onanuga, a lawmaker from Ogun state, passed second reading on Tuesday during plenary.

If passed into law, it will also raise the minimum academic qualification for election into the office of governor, federal and state legislator.

Sections 65, 106, 131 and 177 of the 1999 constitution provide that a person must be qualified for election into the office of the president, governor and federal legislator if he “has been educated up to at least School Certificate level or its equivalent”.

In seeking alteration and amendment, which has been a subject of national discourse for a while now, the bill proposes a qualification of at least a “university degree level or its equivalent”.

Defending the bill during plenary on Tuesday, Onanuga said raising the minimum educational requirement for these political positions will better prepare candidates for the job ahead.

“This is not a bill targeted at stifling the interest of Nigerians in politics, rather it is a bill that will help Nigerians to sufficiently prepare for the humongous task of political leadership,” she said.

She explained that, “As we have begun to see, the race for elective offices at both state and national levels have become increasingly competitive. While this is good as a tenet of universal suffrage, it can also be counterproductive if people who are not sufficiently prepared educationally, get into these elective offices.

“If a managing director who holds an equally strategic position in a company within this country, cannot be employed without a university degree or its equivalent, why should the above political offices be held by people without a university degree or its equivalent?

“We all know that after a university degree or its equivalent in this country, comes the compulsory National Youth Service Corp (NYSC), without which it would be difficult to get into any employment especially within the public sector.

“Invariably, by leaving the qualification of this political offices to remain at school certificate level, we are implying that the NYSC is not a requirement to hold political offices but it is a requirement to secure a job in the public sector.

“Otherwise, how do we place value on education if I say to my son who wants to be a doctor that he needs a university degree or its equivalent to achieve his dream and then say to my daughter who wants to be a president someday that she only needs to have a school certificate?”

According to her, the bill, when passed into law, will raise quality of leadership in the country.

The lawmaker told her colleagues that studying up to a university level would afford a candidate the knowledge, skills and preparedness that cannot be obtained at the school certificate level.

The bill was unanimously adopted when it was put to a voice vote by Idris Wase, Deputy Speaker of the House without debate.