The Executive Director of YIAGA Africa, Samson Itodo, has alleged that some of the recently nominated Resident Electoral Commissioners, REC, of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, have political affiliations and are indicted for corruption.
President Muhammadu Buhari had recently nominated 19 new RECs and forwarded their names to the Senate for screening and confirmation.
Mr Itodo, who made the claim during an interview with Channels TV on Monday, urged the Senate to thoroughly screen and reject any unqualified nominee.
He said, “Now that Resident Electoral Commissioners have been appointed, some of them we know have political affiliations; we know some have been indicted for corrupt practices.
“The Senate should ensure any nominee of the president that has a questionable character and partisan leaning is not cleared as a Resident Electoral Commissioner to manage election because if they are deployed to those states and begin to advance their partisan interest they are going to get push back from other political actors.
He added that the electoral umpire has a fundamental role to conduct credible polls in 2023 to avoid violence.
“INEC has a fundamental role to deliver credible elections and if it does not do so, it might trigger forms of violence, but it appears there is a commitment on the part of INEC to ensure credible elections and INEC should be supported.
“When there is perceived injustice, an attempt by the incumbent to capture INEC, and if other political actors don’t have confidence that INEC is impartial and it has been captured by the ruling party that is also a recipe for disaster and violence,” Mr Itodo added.
