Tinubu Seeks Senate Confirmation for New RECs

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

President  Bola Tinubu has asked the Senate to screen and confirm 10 new Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) for a term of five years.

 Tinubu’s request was contained in  a letter read by the  Senate President,  Godswill Akpabio at plenary yesterday. The newly appointed RECs were appointed last week to serve at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The newly appointed RECs are; Etekamba Umoren (Akwa Ibom) Isah  Ehimeakhe (Edo) Oluwatoyin Babalola (Ekiti) Abubakar Ma’aji (Gombe) Shehu Wahab (Kwara) and Prof. Mohammed Yelwa (Niger).

Others are: Anugbum Onuoha (Rivers), Isma’ila Moyi (Zamfara), Bunmi Omoseyindemi (Lagos) and Aminu Kasimu Idris (Nasarawa).

Their appointment was greeted with controversies that some of them could be  card-carrying members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and two others were also found to be long-term allies of prominent politicians serving in the Tinubu administration.

The gesture was contrary to the provision of the Nigerian constitution. The third schedule of the 1999 constitution prohibits the appointment of a partisan person into INEC.

It reads: “There shall be for each State of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, a Resident Electoral Commissioner who shall be a person of unquestionable integrity and shall not be a member of any political party.”

In the letter seeking  for confirmation of the electoral commissioners, Tinubu asked members of the upper chamber to give his request expeditious consideration.