- INEC now has only 6 Commissioner
- Nominate men with character, integrity INEC, PDP, CUPP, IPAC task President
- Buhari has bequeathed a new democracy to Nigeria, says VON-DG, Okechukwu
By Ezeocha Nzeh and Myke Uzendu
With today’s official disengagement of five of the 12 National Commissioners at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the country’s electoral umpire would be totally depleted with only six National Commissioners.
The task of formulating policies with the National Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, just barely a year to the commencement of activities to the 2023 general elections, have put the electoral body and stakeholders on feverish anxiety.
The disengaging National Commissioners, who would be completing five years of their first tenure today includes, Prof. Okechukwu Ibeano (South-East), Adekunle Ogunmola (South-West), AVM Tijani Muazu (North-East), Mallam Mohammed Abubakar Kudu (North-Central) and May Agbamuche-Mbu (South-South).
Among the remaining six National Commissioners, only Barr. Festus Okoye has worked for over two years, having been inaugurated at the commission in 2018, with the other four only inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari in September and October, this year.
These include Prof. Sani Muhammad Adam, Dr. Baba Bila, Prof. Abdullahi Abdul Zuru, Prof. Muhammad Sani Kallah and Prof. Kunle Cornelius Ajayi.
Barring any last minute announcement by the presidency of their reappointment, stakeholders have charged President Buhari to accord priority to INEC and either reappoint or immediately replace the retiring National Commissioners, so it would not constitute a stumbling block to the tasks ahead of the 2023 general elections.
In tasking the President to ensure that he laid hand only on credible individuals, the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), regretted that the federal government allowed a big vacuum to be created with disengagement of the commissioners.
Secretary-General of CUPP, Peter Ameh, said the appointments should have been made long before their disengagement, noting that INEC as at today (Monday), is depleted with the exit of the five commissioners, who he noted, have jointly contributed immensely in formulating the commission’s policies.
“Election is a process, starting with those who will serve in the election management body. With the exit of the five National Commissioners, it is not in any doubt that a serious vacuum has been created.
“It is wrong for the President to have waited till they disengaged before we start talking of their replacementd. There is a record of their date of appointment and date of exit.
“He should have been proactive and immediately announced the replacement for them for proper screening at various levels of government, considering the big task on the commission ahead.
“He must therefore take a swift decision and appoint only credible Nigerians, with a resolve to give Nigeria the best of democracy,” Ameh stated.
On if they should be reappointed, the CUPP scribe said: “For me, there is no template to assess their performance. It is left for the President to assess them, and whatever decision he takes is only for him and his conscience. He must appoint credible Nigerians who have no stake in the nation’s politics, but must be personalities who are willing and ready to give our democracy a face lift”.
Similarly, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has urged the president to replace the existing National Commissioners with men and women of integrity.
In a conversation on Sunday with our correspondent, Kola Ologbondiyan, the out-going PDP National Publicity Secretary, insisted that persons to be appointed to the vacant positions must be “unbiased Nigerians who are ready to ensure that electoral processes are free and fair”.
He said, “The time has come in our electoral journey in which men and women of good conscience, who have demonstrable integrity and character are appointed to man the affairs of the INEC in order to help our electoral process so that we can have free, fair and credible election”.
On the insinuation that President Buhari may re-nominate Mrs. Lauretta Onochie, whose earlier nomination was stood down by the National Assembly on the ground that Delta state already has a serving commissioner and the seat is one of the vacant positions, Ologbondiyan continued, “if you recall, the case of Onochie was such that she was proved to be a card-carrying member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a canvasser and advertiser for the APC and as such, she should not be nominated to the INEC and I don’t think that position has changed”.
In the same vein, the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC), warned that the president must not be partisan or sentimental in determining the would be appointees.
The IPAC chairman, Leonard Nzenwa, said the new comers must be people who would be ready to add value to the policies of the commission, to give Nigeria a credible election in 2023.
Nzenwa, who is also the national Chairman of The Africa Democratic Congress (ADC), regretted that the introduction of BVAS by INEC during the just-concluded Anambra State governorship election was wrongly timed, stressing that the commission should have conducted proper test-run of the technology before introducing such in a bigger election like the November 6 governorship poll.
He however advised that the president should assess the performance of the commissioners before reappointing them, adding that INEC would be saddled with a very big task of conducting the 2023 general election and would require an electoral body that has both integrity and experienced commissioners to excel.
Meanwhile, the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has insisted that President Buhari has bequeathed to Nigeria, “a lasting democracy with his policy on non-interference with the electoral process”.
Okechukwu, stated that it is the prerogative of the president to either retain or replace the disengaging commissioner, and expressed his satisfaction with the Mahmood Yakubu-led INEC.
“It is the choice of Mr. President to either replace or retain them; the president has maintained that he wants to bequeath to Nigeria a new democracy where people would have their choices
“ and say. I know who he is and I am sure he would maintain his record of giving the country the best.
“For the Prof. Yakubu-led INEC, it is my opinion that he has done creditably well, compared to the past commissions, and the president has also given the commission free hands do their best which Nigerians have noticed, especially in the recent elections they have conducted,” Okechukwu said.
