The PDP’s Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, stated his Party’s position on Ms. Zakari’s appointment at a press briefing in Abuja earlier today. Mr. Metuh said it was also wrong for President Buhari to allow former INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega, to hand over to a different person before picking Ms. Zakari hours later.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has disclosed why it is against the appointment of Amina Zakari as the Acting Chairperson of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The PDP stated that it suspected Ms. Zakari, appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday as acting head of INEC, was too connected to the Presidency and may be a loyalist of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from Nigeria’s northwest zone.
The PDP’s Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, stated his Party’s position on Ms. Zakari’s appointment at a press briefing in Abuja earlier today. Mr. Metuh said it was also wrong for President Buhari to allow former INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega, to hand over to a different person before picking Ms. Zakari hours later.
Mr. Jega, a professor who had run the Commission for five years beginning in June 2010, had on Tuesday handed over to Mohammed Wali, an INEC National Commissioner from Sokoto State. A few hours later, Mr. Buhari named Ms. Zakari as the Commission’s Acting Chairman.
Earlier today, Mr. Wali formally handed over to Ms. Zakari at the Commission's headquarters in Abuja.
Mr. Metuh said that the PDP was deeply disturbed by the development in INEC, wondering why President Buhari, who knew all along that Mr. Jega would leave office by June 30, had to wait for the outgoing Chairman to hand over to one of the National Commissioners only for the President to reverse the situation immediately. According to the PDP spokesman, the development was likely to inject bad blood in the Commission.
“The situation in INEC since the PDP government reformed and granted it operational autonomy has been peaceful, but Tuesday’s untidy overruling of Professor Jega and appointing of Mrs. Amina Zakari as Acting Chairman which, we gathered, was influenced by personal relationship with the Presidency and one of the new Governors of the North West, ostensibly to pave the way for the APC at the electoral tribunals, has completely eroded public trust in the commission,” said Mr. Metuh.
He added: “whereas the PDP recognizes the right and powers of the President to appoint the Chairman of INEC, and the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), we reject attempts as in the case of the AGF to paint the process as transparent and objective when such was not the case, but brought to question the sincerity and commitment of the present administration to due process.
“In INEC, the PDP States in unequivocal terms that we cannot, as critical stakeholders, fold our hands and watch while the Presidency perpetuates actions that diminish the independence of the electoral commission.”