Abigail ErhiagbojeThe Chief Executive Officer of TAF Africa, Jake Epelle has alleged that the seven Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Resident Electoral Officers (REC) appointees confirmed by the National Assembly on Wednesday, are undemocratic individuals with questionable characters.
Epelle said this in an interview with the media on Thursday, regarding the appointment and confirmation of the INEC REC appointees.
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He said: “Another opportunity for the president to write his name in gold without the issues he’s struggling with—this would have been a very good opportunity for him to—put out names that he would not struggle with and unfortunately, we have names that are very undemocratic, individuals with questionable characters and people that we know will not serve the required expectation of any and every democrat—it’s not too late for them to be withdrawn—the cases against them are very obvious…”
“We have taken time, thanks to my very good friend here, Yiaga, to really do a thorough investigation, you know, being a lawyer—we did a thorough investigation of these individuals and they should not be appointed. They shouldn’t have been nominated in the first place…”
He said it was an opportunity for the President to rebuild the battered confidence of past elections and urged Tinubu to withdraw the seven INEC RECs that have been confirmed by the Senate.
According to him, “they have become the dark sheep amongst those who were appointed”.
Mr. Samson Itodo, the Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, who was also present during the interview, said that there are three things Nigerians are fully aware of. The first one is the fact that it wasn’t the first time such situation was occurring in the country.
“It happened under president Buhari—he flooded the electoral commission with persons who are partisan inclined and persons who had questionable characters and he—violated the constitution and he got away with it. It repeated itself in the same fashion, in fact, this time, it’s even worse,” he said.
He expressed concerns on the fact that the Senate President refused to refer the INEC REC nominees to the Senate Committee before going ahead to confirm them himself.
“There were petitions that were submitted against these people, especially the two people—two nominees that we have raised flags, that Nigerians have raised flags…that the entire public space is flooded with images and videos of these individuals—these are individuals who were really out there in public, who have professed their political preference and alignment. And they went ahead and confirmed these people”.
He said such action by the Senate only proves that democracy simply exists without the democrats.
According to him, the democracy of the country rests with individuals who do not care about the welfare of the people nor institutions and what the Senate did was very heartbreaking.
“How can you explain to a Nigerian that this person was confirmed by a democratic institution to serve as an umpire? And we have been screaming and shouting and advocating and telling our politicians that there’s grave danger when INEC is populated by politicians. How do you expect them to superintend over elections and expect people to turn up to vote?” He asked
Secondly, he said the situation was a grand conspiracy by the political class. According to him, none of the opposition party lawmakers in the house have opposed to the move of the Senate President of confirming the partisan INEC RECs, which was a breach of procedure in the appointment of INEC RECs. The silence of the lawmakers was probably a consensus by the political class to secure electoral victory by capturing the electoral management body and such actions by the Senate is a gross violation of the constitution.
“We can’t have people who are creation of the constitution desecrate the constitution. The constitution is clear that individuals who have partisan inclinations, who are members of political parties should not be appointed into INEC…”.
Prime Business Africa recalls that the President had last week approved the appointment of 10 new RECs for INEC for a five-year term each.
On Wednesday, the Senate President confirmed only seven of the nominees as three of them were absent for screening. This followed Tinubu’s request for them to be confirmed in accordance with the provisions of Section 154(1) of the constitution.
The nominees that were approved include, Mr. Isha Ehimeakne from Edo, Barr. Oluwatoyin Babalola from Ekiti, Aminu Idris from Nasarawa, Mohammed Abubakar Sadiq from Niger, Shehu Wahab from Kwara, Mr. Abubakar Ahmed from Gombe and Mr. Etekamba Umoren from Akwa Ibom.
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