BY Femi Owolabi
The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has deregistered Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly.
The group, led by Basil Onyeacholam, broke out from the original Ohanaeze National Assembly headed by John Nwodo.
The CAC in a public notice said the group had not fully met the conditions for the issuance of the certificate of registration.
“This is to inform the general public that the Certificate of Registration No. IT 144918 issued inadvertently to the Trustees of OHANAEZE NDIGBO GENERAL ASSEMBLY has been withdrawn by the Corporate Affairs Commission,” the notice read.
“The Trustees of the Association have been advised to return the said certificate to the Commission as same has been canceled. The conditions for the issuance of the certificate have not been fully fulfilled.”
Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja, Garba Abubakar, CAC registrar, said it amounts to double standards to register the organisation as similar groups have been denied registration, including the Arewa Consultative Forum.
“Up till now, Arewa Consultative Forum is not registered because they were not given security clearance, we have South-South Youth Forum, NorthEast Youth Forum and so many organisations that have not been allowed to register,” he said.
But reacting, Onyeacholam said the CAC had no right to deregister the group. The group sued the CAC, demanding N500 billion.
“The CAC does not have the right to withdraw a certificate of incorporation because the provisions of the law are very clear,” Onyeacholam said.
“We pursued this particular objective and the CAC wrote to us on 27th of January, 2020, notifying us of the approval of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly. That name was approved by the CAC.
“We made newspaper publications to this effect. And the law requires the publication a duration of 28 days. The purpose of this duration is to enable the members of the public to object or there could be a petition. And these publications were made and there was no objection.
“Based on this, the CAC does not have the right to wake up one morning and say it has deregistered Ohanaeze General Assembly. It’s not done that way.”
He said the certificate is with them and only the court can give a verdict on the matter.
“We are going to court, and amongst the orders we shall be asking the court to make will include damages against the CAC to the tune of N500 billion,” he said.
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