Emameh Gabriel in Abuja
The Chairman, Partners for Electoral Reform and Executive Board member, YIAGA Africa, Ezenwa Nwagwu, has faulted the call by former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) on President Bola Tinubu to sack the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, for glitches experienced during the last presidential election.
Ezenwa made the call Friday during a press conference in Abuja, saying Agbakoba’s position was borne out of ignorance and mischief.
The former NBA chief, had last week, said that Yakubu had to vacate his role as the INEC boss so as not to impede the electoral reform in Nigeria.
Agbakoba had commended the president for sacking some top public officers, saying the next thing for him to do “is for the president to dismantle INEC”.
He said many results are disputed and are in tribunals, as petitioners and respondents have suffered at the hands of an incompetent INEC.
“As we await rulings from the courts, massive reforms of the electoral framework ought to begin but this means that the INEC Chairman will have to leave office by resignation or removal, otherwise the reform task will be impeded,” Agbakoba had said.
But Ezenwa has discribed the call as a position made out of ignorance and failure on Agbakoba to study the original provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act (as amended).
He said aside this, logistical challenges contributed largely to some of the glitches experienced during the elections.
He said: “Those who followed the 2023 elections properly would have been able to look at the election in the context to which the election was held. The issue the colouring of the naira which brought about shortage of cash both for citizens and organisations. And for an organisation like INEC that its activities are dependende in vendored relationship, the policy of the central bank was a setback for logistics of the election.
“We also know the issue of fuel. We are also a big country battling with insecurity and banditry in some parts of the country. So under that kind of climate, a person who is a participant observant of the election should not make the kind of call that Olisa Agbakoba made.”
Ezenwa said he was also surprised to hear that the respected lawyer said he had a shocking discovering that “our elections were manual”.
“Then I asked myself where have you been? If you are a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and you are not aware that our election is manual, then it means that you don’t have that kind of privilege right to make a call that is not very substancive to be addressed” he said.
He said he was disappointed that like most Nigerians, Agbakoba doesn’t have a good knowledge of the provisions of the Electoral Act.
“There are four reports on pre-election issues issued before this election, citing the number of places political parties had agents across the country for the election. Not many of us have interest. Those reports are there. Not many of us go to check where these agents have presence or not.
“INEC published the percentage of agents that political parties had before this election. How many of us had time to find out what is the percentage of agents some of these political parties had before the election. Some of these political parties claimed that they had citizen agents. This is prepostero
