Issued in Abuja: 10:00am Tuesday, 30th August 2022
The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room (Situation Room) has asked the Senate Committee on INEC to reject the nomination of Prof. Mohammed Lawal Bashir, Dr. Ugochi Pauline Onyeka and Dr. Queen Elizabeth Agu as Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on grounds of partisanship and likelihood of bias. According to the Situation Room, the nominees have questionable credentials regarding their ability to be non-partisan.
Prof. Bashir is openly affiliated with and contested in the Governorship primaries of a political party in Sokoto State in the 2015 General Elections. The Situation Room also raised concerns about the nominations of Dr. Ugochi Pauline Onyeka from Imo State and Dr. Queen Elizabeth Agu from Ebonyi State. Dr. Onyeka was a former staff of INEC who was allegedly redeployed on account of her open association with political parties while Dr. Agu is reported to be a member of a political party and held a political appointed as an Acting Chief of Staff to Governor David Umahi up until June 2021.
Section 156(1) of the Constitution makes it mandatory that an appointee at INEC shall not be a member of a Political Party. Item F, paragraph 14 of the third schedule to the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria forbids a partisan person as a member of INEC – a body charged under the Constitution to independently conduct free and fair elections.
President Buhari’s nomination of clearly partisan individuals into INEC amounts to a major attempt at undermining efforts to improve credibility of the electoral body, and contradicts the President’s public claim that he will bequeath a better electoral process to Nigeria. We wish to remind President Buhari that he was a beneficiary of a fair and credible electoral process in 2015.
Appointing a person who is a member of a political party into INEC will affect the independence of the electoral body and citizens’ confidence in the electoral process.
Consequently, Situation Room has called on the Senate Committee on INEC to whom the nomination was referred to by the Senate Plenary to recommend rejection of the three nominees on grounds of partisanship and likelihood of bias in carrying out the duties of a REC.
Situation Room is calling on the Senate to rise up, once again, to insist on a non-partisan and independent membership for INEC particularly at this critical time.
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SIGNED:
Ene Obi
Convener, Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room
Asma’u Joda
Co-Convener, Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room
James Ugochukwu
Co-Convener, Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room