Buhari’s aide’s nomination as electoral umpire: Ex-INEC Chairman, Jega, kicks, says can erode public trust in the electoral body.

“The controversies around the nomination of the former aide to the president could have been avoided. This kind of controversy is really avoidable. Any person who generated such a controversy, the appointing authorities should be careful because you don’t want to appoint anybody that can raise suspicions or doubts or can lead to a loss of trust on the electoral management body”

As the dust of the nomination and screening of a presidential aide, Ms. Lauretta Onochie, as National Commissioner for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is yet to settle, the immediate past Chairman of the commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, has given a thumbs down for the appointment.

Describing the controversies her nomination by President Muhammadu Buhari has generated as avoidable, Jega said only people without political or party affiliation should serve in the “independent’’ electoral body.

Persecondnews had reported that Onochie, amid protest against her nomination, had denied her membership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) during her screening last week by the Senate.

Onochie claimed at the screening that “she stopped being an APC member since 2019’’.

Civil society groups, lawyers and the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had criticized her nomination as too partisan for the job of an electoral empire.

“The controversies around the nomination of the former aide to the president could have been avoided. This kind of controversy is really avoidable.

“Any person who generated such a controversy, the appointing authorities should be careful because you don’t want to appoint anybody that can raise suspicions or doubts or can lead to a loss of trust on the electoral management body,” Jega said.

Speaking on a Channels TV programme monitored by Persecondnews, Jega urged President Buhari to withdraw Onochie’s nomination and replace her with another female from her state.

According to him, there are many other eligible women for the job from her state.

Persecondnews recalls that Jega, who presided over the 2015 polls that gave overwhelming victory to Buhari over the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, was on July 9, 2021 appointed by Buhari as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council, University of Jos.