A coalition of Civil Society Central Coordinating Council and some political parties has faulted calls for the sack of the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC), Yakubu Mahmood.
The coalition on the aegies of Civil Society National Roundtable, at a press briefing, in Abuja, on Monday, said the call for Mahmood sack was Ill-motivated.
The group, in a statement read by the national chairman, Action Alliance, Kenneth Udeze, lauded INEC for deploying the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV) during the conduct of the 2023 polls. Nevertheless, it blamed political parties and actors for the challenges encountered during the election.
“The National Roundtable reviewed the pre-election processes by the political parties and agreed that political parties and political actors were responsible for a vast majority of the tension and concerns about the election and INEC conducted itself creditably in this area.
“The National Roundtable reviewed the modus of collation and announcement of results and decried the wrongful use of armed security personnel to compromise the electoral process at the collation centres and called for introduction of the use of technology in this aspect of the process.
“The National Roundtable therefore frowns at the call for the removal of the INEC Chairman from office and unanimously rejects the call as being self-serving, myopic and a setback to gains made in the electoral process, “it stated.
The coalition added that ” the National Roundtable believes that for INEC to be truly independent, the appointment and removal of the leadership of the Commission should not be at the whims and caprices of the executive and that until the approval of the National Assembly is sought and obtained, the Chairman of INEC cannot be removed.’
SUN NEWS
