THE Federal Government has said the Ohaneze Ndigbo and Arewa Consultative Forum were proscribed because they delved into politics.
Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Garba Abubakar, stated that registration of socio-cultural organisation would also, require the CAC having the certificate of security screening and clearance of members of their Board of Trustees.
“Yes, we have withdrawn the certificate of Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly because the certificate should not have been issued in the first instance.
“We have an established protocol that all organisations; ethnic, religious with political implication should be referred for security clearance before such organisations are registered.
“In 2017, a similar organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide applied to be registered and security agencies rejected it.
“It would have been a double standard to allow another organisation to be registered.
“Up till now, Arewa Consultative Forum is not registered because they were not given security clearance, we have South-South Youth Forum, North-East Youth Forum and so many organisations that have not been allowed to register.
“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consistent with what the law says, and the trustees are fit and proper, then we will go ahead, but till then, we have withdrawn the certificate and they have threatened to go to court, we are lawyers, we will meet them in court,” Abubakar said.
