Opposition, groups kick as Buhari appoint aide INEC commissioner
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, several civil society organizations, Afenifere, asked the President, Muhammadu Buhari to withdraw the nomination one of his media aides, Lauretta Onochie as a National Commissioner of the Independent Electoral Commission representing Delta State.
Buhari had in a letter, read on the floor of the Senate by the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan on Tuesday, requested for the confirmation of Onochie, who is currently his Special Assistant on Social Media, and three others as INEC National Commissioners.
The three nominees are Prof. Muhammad Sani Kallah (Katsina), Prof. Kunle Cornelius Ajayi (Ekiti) and Saidu Babura Ahmad (Jigawa). Senators elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party in a statement soon afterwards berated the President for nominating. They said with her nomination, Buhari “has willfully gone against the constitution the he swore to uphold”. “The minority caucus of the senate is against the nomination and call on Mr President to withdraw it”.
Similarly, the Pan Yoruba Socio-Political organisation, Afenifere and over 16 civil society groups out rightly rejected Onochie’s nomination describing it as an affront on the collective sensibilities of Nigerians.
While Afenifere said Onochie’s nomination “would mark the final conquest of the country and the beginning of the end of INEC”, the Civil Society Organization, CSO, called on the President to “withdraw this nomination with immediate effect and in the alternative call on the Senate to act as gate keepers by not confirming this appointment”.
Several CSO’s, including the Centre for Transparency Advocacy, the Say No Campaign, among several others in a joint statement in Abuja said, “We completely reject this nomination, which does not sit well in the recent gains of the electoral system in the country”.