Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, has warned that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) can’t conduct credible elections by appointing card-carrying members of political parties as the commission’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC).
Falana stated this in an interview on Channels TV on Friday.
He said, “Since 1999, we have had this terrible experience of a ruling party trying to populate the electoral body with party loyalists and sympathizers, and that was what led to the amendment of the constitution.
“Successive regimes in Nigeria, Yar’Adua’s regime, Jonathan’s regime, and Buhari’s regime have all set up electoral reform committees or panels to make recommendations that will assist the government to have credible elections.
“In the case of President Tinubu as a leader of the CAN, he set up a committee for electoral reforms to campaign for the implementation of the recommendations of the Uwais Panel, and one of them is that we must have independent umpires in every material particular.
“You can’t have a card-carrying member of a political party or a loyalist of a political party to be a Resident Electoral Commissioner or a national commissioner; you complicate the problem for INEC to have credible elections,” Falana said.
The Senate, on Thursday, confirmed the three remaining RECs after the first seven of the 10 appointed by President Tinubu were confirmed on Wednesday.
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