INEC: PDP warns Ahmed Lawan against confirming Lauretta Onochie
NEWS DIGEST – The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has cautioned Senate President, Ahmed Lawan against aiding the confirmation of Mrs Lauretta Onochie as a national commissioner in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
President Muhammadu Buhari had in October 2020, forwarded Onochie’s and the names of two other nominees to the Senate for confirmation as INEC commissioners.
The News Digest reports that the Senate had kept mum on the President’s choice despite a public outcry over her All Progressives Congress (APC) membership. She also currently serves in Presidency as a Special Assistant on Social Media.
However, the Senate last week, referred Onochie and the two other nominees to the Senate Committee on INEC for screening and possible recommendation for confirmation.
But at a media briefing in Abuja on Wednesday by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party charged Lawan to respect Nigerians by rejecting Onochie’s nomination.
Ologbondiyan said Lawan would be ridiculing himself and his exalted office if he failed to reject the nomination, threatening legal action if Onochie is eventually confirmed.
The PDP spokesman also called on the Senate committee chairman on INEC, Senator Kabiru Gaya to resist any attempt by Lawan to drag him into public ignominy and odium by engaging him to do an “incredulous, irresponsible and dirty job” of returning a confirmation of Onochie to the Committee of the Whole Senate.
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The party urged Senator Gaya to immediately stand down all deliberations that concern Onochie before his committee.
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Ologbondiyan said: “Senator Lawan must know that Nigerians are now holding him directly answerable for gross misconduct and impeachable act of perfidy for sending Onochie’s already rejected nomination to the Gaya’s Committee, in utter violation of the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and total derision for the sensibility of Nigerians.
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“Our party reminds Senator Lawan that the reasons that forced his hands to stand down Onochie’s faulted nomination eight months ago have neither changed nor abated. The reasons are still sticking and they are not far-fetched.
“In case Lawan needs to be reminded, paragraph 14 of the 3rd schedule of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) forbids a person involved in partisan politics to hold office as a member of INEC.”
Relying on the above in demanding for respect for the supremacy of the 1999 Constitution, the PDP said that Onochie is a card-carrying member of the APC from Ward 5 Onicha Olona, Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta state.
The main opposition party also recalled that the nominee is also an aggressive public campaigner for the APC and President Buhari, and as such, cannot, by any stroke of imagination, be appointed as an INEC official at any level and under any guise whatsoever.
“If anything, our party assures Senator Lawan that his desperation to appoint Onochie into INEC through the backdoor is an act of rebellion against the 1999 constitution as well as impudence to the sensibilities of Nigerians, which must never be allowed to stand,” the party added.
The PDP called on its members and other democratically minded members of the National Assembly, across party lines, to activate and deploy all legislative instruments at their disposal against Onochie’s confirmation.
It also directed its members and all lovers of democracy across the country to get ready to use all legitimate means, including civic action against Senator Lawan and the APC leadership in the Senate if they do not rescind their attempt to confirm Onochie at all costs.
“The intent and purpose of the PDP is to preserve the sanctity and credibility of INEC and our party will never allow Senator Lawan and his APC to smuggle a fox into INEC sheep pen in their bid to corrupt and further desecrate the commission and derail our national effort towards free, fair and credible electoral process in our country,” it added.
The party also charged Presidency to end what it described as its ignoble attempt to compromise the Senate and the electoral system in its bid to “perpetuate its misrule” beyond 2023.
