The Senate, on Wednesday, asked its Committee on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to screen the Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie and five others as national commissioners of the electoral body.
This is coming eight months after President Muhammadu Buhari forwarded a request to the Red Chamber to confirm the nominees.
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President Buhari had, on October 12, nominated Onochie (Delta), Professor Muhammad Sani Kallah (Katsina), Professor Kunle Cornelius Ajayi (Ekiti), Saidu Babura Ahmad (Jigawa), Prof. Sani Muhammad Adam (north central) and Dr. Baba Bila (north east) as national commissioners of the INEC.
Buhari, in an executive communication to Senate President Ahmad Lawan, stated that his request was pursuant to Paragraph 14, part I (f) of the Third Schedule to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended
Onochie’s nomination had sparked thunderous outrage from the opposition lawmakers and some from the All Progressives Congress (APC) and civil society groups, who argued that she was “too partisan” to be a commissioner in an important institution like INEC.
Opposition senators had said that by nominating Onochie, Buhari had “willfully gone against the constitution he swore to uphold,” and urged him to withdraw it.
While “reluctantly” seconding the motion that the nominations be referred to the Senate Committee for action, the Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, expressed surprise that Onochie’s name resurfaced again as INEC national commissioner nominee after the widespread opposition against her nomination.
“We shall meet in the Philippines”, Abaribe added.
