Senate confirms 19 RECs, says petitions are bogus

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The Senate on Wednesday confirmed the 19 Resident Election Commissioners sent by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (Retired).

The nominees are Ibrahim Abdullahi (Adamawa); Obo Effanga (Cross River); Omar Ibrahim (Taraba); Agboké Olaleke (Ogun); and Samuel Egwu (Kogi), Onyeka Ugochi (Imo); Muhammad Bashir (Sokoto) and Ayobami Salami from Oyo State.

The others are Zango Abdu (Katsina); Queen Agwu (Ebonyi), Agundu Tersoo (Benue); Yomere Oritsemlebi (Delta); Yahaya Ibrahim, (Kaduna); Noura Ali (Kano); Agu Uchenna (Enugu); Ahmed Garki (FCT); Houdu Yunusa (Bauchi); Uzochukwu Chijioke, (Anambra) and Mohammed Nura (Yobe).

The commissioners were pre-selected exactly one week ago behind closed doors by the senatorial committee of the Independent National Electoral Commission chaired by Senator Kabiru Gaya (APC Kano Sud).

Presenting his report, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Electoral Matters, Senator Kabiru Gaya, said: "To determine their suitability for the positions for which they were nominated, the candidates were questioned on questions relating mainly to about partisanship, membership in political parties, and how they hoped to improve the electoral process if and when their nominations were confirmed.”

The candidates, Gaya said, assured the committee of their non-partisanship, non-affiliation to any political party, and promised to discharge their responsibilities diligently in accordance with established laws.

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He said the committee found no merit in the petitions against four candidates that border on alleged political party affiliation, partisanship, compromise and incompetence.

"The committee performed due diligence on the petitions by listening to the candidates' defense and conducting a detailed review of the petitions to determine whether or not the allegations against the four candidates were valid," Gaya said.

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The Minority Leader, Philip Aduda, then stood up to say he was unsure of the process by which the RECs emerged, but he immediately resisted the Chief Whip who explained that he and the minority leader had been invited to be a part of the screening and they were both present for the process.

Senate President Ahmad Lawan then confirmed the 19 commissioners.

Some civil society organizations, including the director of the International Press Center, had objected to the alleged appointment of members of Congress from all ruling progressives as commissioners of the Independent National Electoral Commission.< /p>

In a statement signed by its chairman, Auwal Ibrahima Musa Rafsanjani, the group described the appointment of ruling party members as election commissioners as a strategy to influence the process and outcome of the elections in favor of the APC.< /p>

CSOs said the candidate from Sokoto was a 2015 APC gubernatorial candidate, while the candidate from Enugu would be the younger sister of the APC National Vice President, South East .

Similarly, CSOs said that Imo's candidate, a former ICT officer at INEC in Imo, is infamous for his allegations of corruption and colluding with politicians to undermine elections, while the Ebonyi candidate, a former accountant general of Ebonyi State, was suspended over allegations of incompetence and corruption in 2016.

In the same vein, the Senate also confirmed Lawan Townsman Muhammad Lamido as the Executive Commissioner for Finance and Accounts of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Agency , replacing the late Hassan Gambo.

The confirmations were made following the review of reports from the Upstream Petroleum Sector.

Our correspondent who was present at the committee screening of Lamido on Tuesday observed that no questions were asked about his competence or expertise. He was asked to introduce himself and the committee in unison confirmed the 61-year-old.

Lamido was born in Jakuso Local Government Area of ​​Yobe State in 1959.