The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has charged the Chairman , INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu to use the opportunity of his reappointment to redeem himself, reposition the commission and give the country credible, free and fair elections.
The charge was given in a statement issued on Wednesday by the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, on the reappointment of Mahmood Yakubu by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The party states that this re-appointment entrusts on Prof. Yakubu the fate, hope and future of over 200 million Nigerians as well as that of generations yet unborn,” the statement partly read.
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“In the light of this five-year extension, our party hopes that the failures, disappointments and miscarriages that characterized the first five years tenure of Yakubu will have no place in the new order.
“It is therefore instructive to state that with his re-appointment, Prof Yakubu has been given an ample time and opportunity to redeem himself, the image of the commission and preparation for credible, free and fair elections in our country.
“At least, with this reappointment whatever happens in our future elections cannot be ascribed to inexperience and lack of adequate preparedness on the side of INEC.”
The party also asked President Buhari to “demonstrate a readiness for a free fair and credible election, which Mr. President had always promised to bequeath at the end of his second and final term in office in 2023.”
“His reappointment therefore comes with a lot of expectations by Nigerians. He must quickly take painstaking look into issues that aid manipulations, rigging, violence and inconclusive elections which marred most of the exercises conducted in his previous tenure.”
The Party therefore charge the INEC Chairman to spend the nearly two years ahead of the next general election to rejig the commission, work out appropriate electoral policies and guidelines and push for amendment of the Electoral Act, in conjunction with the National Assembly, to give the nation a credible electoral process.
It also called on the National Assembly, particularly, the Senate, to focus on the pertinent issues in the course of screening Prof. Yakubu to ensure that the failures of the past is not given accommodation in the new era.
