INEC boss Yakubu shouldn’t be allowed to conduct 2019 elections - Group
- Calls for the sack of Professor Mahmoud Yakubu before the 2019 general elections are growing in leap and bounds nationwide
- A group has lent its voice to the call for resignation or sack of the INEC chairman
- According to the group, the 2019 polls would not be free and fair with Yakubu as chairman of the electoral commission
A group, Good Governance Initiative (GGI), has lent its voice to the call for resignation or sack of INEC chairman, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, before the 2019 general elections.
At a press conference held in Abuja on Sunday, June 18, chairman of the group, Anosike Nwosu, stated that the 2019 polls would not be free and fair with Yakubu in the saddle as chairman of INEC, expressing fear that he would compromise the results.
The fear of the group, according to Nwosu, stems from what he described as Yakubu’s ethno-religious relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari, the ground on which he alleged that plans had been concluded to manipulate the exercise in favour of the president.
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“Our fear stems from his relationship with the president, both of whom are from the north east with same religion. This makes us fear that despite series of assurances by the commission of free and fair elections, we are still not convinced of a free exercise," he said.
Nwosu described the headship of the various security agencies in the country by northern Muslims as a deliberate plan by the president to silence some sections of the country “as being witnessed today.”
The group warned that should the leadership of INEC not be reorganised, GGI would adopt other measures to take to the world the message of the president’s deliberate measure to rig himself back to power in 2019, “having been aware of his waning popularity.”
Reacting to the group's demands, the chief press secretary to Yakubu, Rotimi Lawrence Oyekanmi, told The Guardian that the GGI and others were free to express their opinions, but said INEC would remain focused on its mandate to continually deliver free, fair and credible elections.
“Any organisation or individual that wants to succeed cannot afford to be distracted by irrelevant things,” Oyekanmi stated.
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Meanwhile, a coalition of Civil Society Organisations and election observer groups have described those calling for the sack of the INEC chairman as enemies of Nigeria's democracy.
The groups said the call was more of ethnic agenda, rather than about the development of the nation's democracy, even as it urged Nigerians to disregard such calls.
Addressing a joint press conference in Abuja on Thursday, June 14, the executive director, Independent Service Delivery Monitoring Group, Dr. Chima Amadi, as well as Ezenwa Nwagwu of Partners for Electoral Reforms, described those behind the call for Yakubu's sack as “ethnic entrepreneurs who are determined to undermine the integrity of the electoral process and diminish the democratic gains our country has made since the return to civil rule in 1999.”
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Source: Legit.ng
