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From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
Executive Director, International Press Centre, Lanre Arogundade yesterday explained that the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) insistence that the four persons identified as political party members in the list of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Commissioner nominees be withdrawn was to help Nigerian’s democracy to develop.
He said their removal would avert a situation where litigations could obstruct the 2023 general elections timetable and the credible election promised by INEC.
Arogundade, who was a guest in a national television programme argued that appointing those established to be partisan would be acting against the law and not in the interest of the country.
“We are looking at the situation where the electoral processes leading to the elections would be quite fair for all concerned by ensuring that the provisions of the law are complied with.
“Our position really is that some of these nominees, to the extent that we’ve been able to demonstrate their high level of partisanship, then the President should do the needful, withdraw them and then have them replaced.
“The president has made his nominations, we as civil societies have come together to say that there are some missing gaps, and let this missing gaps be filled.
“The legislations that relate to the appointment of officials for INEC tries as much as possible to speak about the fact that there should be non partisanship on their part. They should be neutral, and then they should be effective and to that extent, they are expected not to belong to the political parties and I refer to section 156 (1) (a) of the 1999 constitution for example which expressly prohibits any person who belong to a political party from being a member of INEC and all these are spelt out in other provisions of the constitution.
