By Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
President Bola Tinubu yesterday asked the Senate to screen and confirm 10 new Resident Electoral Commissioners for a term of five years.
Tinubu’s request was contained in a letter read by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio at plenary yesterday.
The newly appointed RECs were appointed last week to serve in the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The newly appointed RECs are; Etekamba Umoren (Akwa Ibom) Isah Shaka Ehimeakne (Edo) Oluwatoyin Babalola (Ekiti) Abubakar Ahmed Ma’aji (Gombe) Shehu Wahab (Kwara) Prof. Mohammed Yelwa (Niger).
Others are Anugbum Onuoha (Rivers), Isma’ila Kaura Moyi (Zamfara), Bunmi Omoseyindemi (Lagos) and Aminu Kasimu Idris (Nasarawa).
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Their appointment was greeted with controversies that some of them could be card-carrying members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and two others were also found to be long-term allies of prominent politicians serving in the Tinubu administration.
The gesture was contrary to the provision of the Nigerian constitution. The third schedule of the 1999 constitution prohibits the appointment of a partisan person into INEC in Item F, paragraph 14.
It reads, “There shall be for each State of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, a Resident Electoral Commissioner who shall be a person of unquestionable integrity and shall not be a member of any political party,” section 14, 3(b) states.”
In the letter seeking for confirmation of the electoral commissioners, Tinubu asked members of the upper chamber to give his request, expeditious consideration.
