The National Secretary of the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, Comrade Oginni Olaposi Sunday has expressed support for President Bola Tinubu’s choice of Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan as the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Comrade Oginni spoke against the background of the usual controversies surrounding appointment of INEC Chairmen in Nigeria.
Recall that the National Council of States approved the appointment of Amupitan to take over from Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu as INEC Chairman.
According to Oginni, Amupitan already has his work cut out for him and should hit the ground running as soon as his appointment is confirmed by the National Assembly.
“The first task for Amupitan is to change the narratives of the battered image of INEC and return the trust of Nigerians to the umpire.
“INEC’s image has been so eroded over the years that the first task before Amupitan is to fight systemic corruption and the wrongs of the commission and create confidence and trust.
Amupitan needs to study the commission thoroughly and correct issues currently before the commission that Mahmoud ignored. Make appropriate recommendations to Mr. president on who should stay or leave the commission for sanity to reign.
According to Oginni, President Tinubu and the Federal Executive Council members must have seen Amupitan’s capacity before nominating him, pointing out that the President is truly committed to right the wrongs in Nigeria, and may be starting from INEC.
What we need in Nigeria at the moment shall be leaders who can take informed and hard decisions if we must re-invent Nigeria of our dreams.
“Our experience with INEC over the internal leadership crisis in our great party have given us an insight over the ills of the commission on how the body works.
“For the immediate past leadership of INEC to ignore subsisting court orders and directives to upload the NNPP’s new national executives was a shocker and very shameful to constitutional democracy.
“What could have stopped the former INEC boss from obeying the court orders needed to be researched. These and many more are part of issues that can erode people’s confidence in an institution.
“Amupitan has the choice to either follow the path of past INEC Chairmen or write his name in diamond. It is our hope that the Acting National Chairman shall clear the mess quickly before his assumption of duty to start in a clean slate.
“Unattended matters, especially disobedience to court judgements, should be cleared forthwith . It is still like a day dream to us that some bad eggs in INEC connived and fraudulently changed the logo and colour of our party symbols without the consent of the founding members and the holder of the original certificate of registration.
“INEC did the conversion without asking or sighting the original certificate of registration of the New Nigeria People’s Party. This simply means that anyone can approach INEC and change the logo and colour symbols of APC, PDP, LABOUR and others just like that .
“The ills of INEC are so many and grievous to the extent that it does not have respect for rule of law, court judgements and internal democracy of political parties. Otherwise how can INEC be dealing with expelled members of a party and to the extent of conniving with them to change the logo and colour symbols of NNPP to Kwankwasiya movement insignia led by Senator Rabiu musa KWANKWASO
“This is reckless, corruptly fraudulent and a total abuse of power to ignore court judgements and internal democracy of a registered political party in Nigeria.
“The NNPP shall join Mr. President and the good people of Nigeria to give the new leadership of INEC maximum support and pray that he is not distracted in carrying out his duties”, Oginni added.
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