Yakubu, new INEC boss
Buhari
•Buhari bows to legality on quorum but…
•Why Senate screening of commissioners must be thorough
•Some nominees have baggage — Investigation
By Jide Ajani
Whereas President Muhammadu Buhari has done the right and proper thing regarding last week’s
appointment of National Commissioners and National Chairman-designate for the Independent National
Electoral Commission, INEC, with a view to constituting a proper Commission, there are still many
rivers to cross.
Indeed, Sunday Vanguard had consistently harped on the need to appoint commissioners to the
Commission so that its required quorum would be met, culminating in penultimate Sunday’s
publication of a subsisting Federal High Court judgment which declared that not less than five
commissioners can form the quorum for INEC, as against Madam Amina Zakari andAmbassador
Lawrence Nwuruku (even with a sword of doubt hanging over the head of the former), which Buhari
heeded, is worth commending. However, the nature of the nominations, as well as the caliber of the
nominees, remains curious.
This report will show why President Buhari needs to do more to ensure that the goodness he benefited
from an impartial electoral management body, is not denied other Nigerians whose elections INEC
would superintend, by nominating men and women of impeccable and sound character to the
Commission.
A SHOCKER FOR NATIONAL COUNCIL OF STATE
President Muhammadu Buhari did it again last week. You could call it a matter of style.
The no-nonsense fifth
executive President and
Commander-in-Chief avoided
all the niceties of packaging,
to present his nominees for
the offices of national
commissioners and office of
national chairman,
Independent National
Electoral Commission, INEC,
to members of the National
Council of States, NCoS.
He read out the names:
Professor Mahmood Yakubu,
as Chairman; Mrs. Amina
Bala Zakari, the immediate
past acting INEC Chairman,
representing the North-West;
Dr. Antonia Taiye Okoosi-
Simbile, commissioner representing North-Central; and Alhaji Baba Shettima Arfo from Borno as
commissioner representing the North-East. Others are Dr. Mohammed Mustapha Lecky from Edo as
commissioner representing the South-South and Prince Soyebi Adedeji Solomon from Ogun State
representing the South-west.
A source at the meeting told Sunday Vanguard that some jaws dropped as Mr. President made his
presentation.
In fact, pieces of information made available to Sunday Vanguard, about what transpired at this first
meeting of the NCoS since Buhari’s inauguration, suggest that some of the governors were shocked.
Interestingly, most of those who were shocked were governors of the All Progressive Congress, APC.
The reason for this, Sunday Vanguard was made to understand, stemmed from the fact that they were
not consulted before the nominees were brought to the NCoS.
That was the first shocker.
A few of the governors, upon hearing the names, wondered what manner of INEC President Buhari was
attempting to establish – these ones were predominantly of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
DECONSTRUCTING BUHARI’S INEC
But the PDP governors did not wonder afar.
It soon became a joke, that one of the commissioners Buhari had just nominated was part of the self-
same Commission that oversaw the defeat of Buhari as presidential candidate of the Congress for
Progressive Change, CPC. And the same President Buhari had complained openly about seeming
partisanship of INEC during the 2007 presidential election, especially as his appeal was being tossed
from court to court before it was finally dismissed in what he described as controversial circumstance.
It was during that period of open lamentation that saw Buhari come in the open to lament the future
of Nigeria in view of what some described as the grand electoral robbery of 2007, an election in which
the winner, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, acknowledged the flaws.
Specifically, the nominee for the South West zone was also a national commissioner during the 2007
presidential election.
So, the joke is: What new appurtenances of credible election are being expected with the
appointment.
Since it has been generally acknowledged that the Professor Attahiru Jega-led INEC brought Nigeria
closer to electoral sanity, it is indecipherable at this point why President Buhari has appointed a
national commissioner who served in what some say was a discredited INEC.
The rationale behind that nomination, in the estimation of some, remains curious.
More curious, one of the governors at the meeting said, was the insistence of “Mr. President to still
appoint Amina Zakari, inspite of the overwhelming familial connection” which has diminished the real
essence of the woman.
Another individual, among the nominees, was alleged to have collected money from two contending
parties during a gubernatorial election some years ago. This actually led to an open confrontation
between the nominee and one of the parties in the open – it had to do with a governorship election in
Abia State, to be specific.
Yet, the nominee from Edo State, who hails from Auchi, the same area one of the national leaders of
the APC comes from, is another addition in the list.
ATTAHIRU JEGA, 1,957 DAYS AGO
One thousand, nine hundred and fifty seven days ago, specifically on Tuesday, June 8, 2010, President
Goodluck Jonathan settled for Professor Jega as national chairman of INEC and presented his name,
along with some others, to the NCoS..
Appointing Jega did not
come easy.
However, the overwhelming
desire of Nigerians to have
an election management
body that would conduct
elections that would be
acceptable, free and fair,
appeared to have guided and
guarded Jonathan’s choice of
Jega.
Indeed, before that day’s
meeting of the NCoS, the
government had flown a kite,
throwing into the public
domain the names of Olisa Agbakoba, Barrister Buari and Jega.
Because of Jega’s antecedents, Nigerians pointed in his direction.
Jonathan had no option than to appoint the Professor from Kebbi State.
Against all odds, Jega did well – in his own way.
QUESTIONS
Given these speculations of possible partisanship, observers are compelled to ask what happened to all
those INEC commissioners that Nigerians know very well, who served creditably during Jega’s time
and whose integrity and publicly acknowledged commitment helped to build the reputation that INEC
enjoyed up until June 2015?
How can this administration expect to earn public trust by appointing only Madam Zakari, not even
known as the face of INEC, until her controversial appointment as acting national chairman, an
appointment which was in itself treacherous in the face of the law?
Where are those commissioners who served as the face of INEC at critical moments when members of
the public needed to clear the fog?
How does President Buhari hope to instill institutional memory in the Commission?
Like Jonathan after barely a year in office, why is President Buhari attempting to decimate his own
goodwill?
It was Olusegun Obasanjo who described the 2007 presidential election as a do-or-die affair and,
therefore, went ahead to intimidate those at INEC. Now, Buhari is President and his nominees, for
now, do not inspire the type of confidence that Nigerians are looking for.
Does this signal the conclusion which Nigerians must now come to accept, that all former military
heads of government consider elections as a do-or-die affair and therefore have no concern
whatsoever for credible election managers? Where are all the credible election managers whose
credible conducts led to the emergence of the transition that the current government is enjoying? Will
the current government deny Nigerian the freewill to choose in elections which helped to usher them in
as a source of hope and accountability? The remaining nominations which the government will make
to lead INEC at national and state levels will serve to reassure Nigerians that all hope is not lost, or
confirm that indeed enduring Democracy as we hoped for, will not come to Nigeria in the near future. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/10/inecs-impartiality-going-going-going/