July 4, 2015 :
The
Peoples Democratic Party has said that it will continue to demand the
removal of the Acting Chairman of the Independent National Electoral
Commission, Mrs. Amina Zakari.
It said
this was the position taken by the party at the meeting of members of
the National Working Committee, despite what it described as unwarranted
attacks on its officials by the Presidency.
The meeting was held in Abuja at the party’s headquarters on Wednesday.
The party
said it was privy to the fact that Zakari, who it claimed has a strong
relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari and a very prominent APC
North-West governor, is allegedly collaborating with the ruling party to
post Resident Electoral Commissioners of its choice to Kogi and Bayelsa
States ahead of the forthcoming governorship elections in those states.
The PDP
raised the alarm of alleged moves to use the period of Zakari’s stay as
head of the commission to allegedly tinker with electoral personnel and
materials for the two states in favour of the APC.
PDP
National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in a statement in
Abuja on Saturday said President Buhari, in appointing Zakari, failed to
take into cognizance the moral call to detach himself from the
operation of the electoral body thereby completely eroding the
independence of the commission.
He pointed
out that the issue at stake was not that of Zakari’s competence or
performance in office but the fact of “nepotism and her closeness to the
President and some key APC leaders, which calls into question the
independence of the electoral body under her.”
The
statement said, “We want Nigerians to know that with this appointment,
INEC has been stripped of its independence and can no longer command the
confidence and respect of the citizens and all other critical
stakeholders in the nation’s electoral process.
“We
however find it astonishing, discouraging and disheartening that the
spokesperson of the President will address Nigerians and lie to the
entire citizenry that Zakari never had any relationship with the
President or an APC Governor in the Northwest. This is the height of
deception coming from the respected office of the President of our dear
country.
“We ask,
is the spokesperson for the President oblivious of the public fact that
the Acting Chairman of INEC was once a staff of Afri-Project Consortium,
a company well associated with the President?
“Is he by
any means feigning ignorance of the fact that Mrs. Zakari also worked in
the past as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Social Development
and later that of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Federal
Capital Development Authority, then under a current APC governor of the
North-West?
“How much
of Zakari’s roles in the last general elections does the spokesperson
for the President, who has just been appointed, know to warrant his
brazen defence?”
He added
that even where the party conceded to the argument that the President
has the powers to appoint any person he deems fit as the INEC Chairman,
he said such powers must take into cognizance the sensitivity of the
position involved.
Otherwise, Metuh said the President can as well appoint his wife or brother as the electoral umpire on an argument of merit.
He stressed that as long as the acting chairman remains in office, it
would not recognise the electoral body as the being independent.Olusola Fabiyi
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