Buhari’s appointment has been overwhelmingly nepotistic – Odinkalu

A former Chairman, National Human Rights Commission, Prof Chidi Odinkalu, has said that even President Muhammadu Buhari ardent admirers are not likely to defend him against charges of nepotism.

Odinkalu who disclosed this while reacting to the nomination of Prof Mahmood Yakubu for another term as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, said there is no question that President Buhari’s appointments in recent times have been overwhelmingly nepotistic.

Buhari had last week nominated Prof Mahmood Yakubu for another term as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Prof. Odinkalu said he acknowledged that it was the constitutional province of the President to nominate a chair and commissioners for INEC and, if they are confirmed by the National Assembly, to appoint them into office.

He however, stated that some of the recent nominations to INEC by President Buhari have raised more than eyebrows; like the nomination of Lauretta Onochie.

“You will know that the constitution was amended so that INEC commissioners are not to have any partisan affiliations. At least two of the nominees by the President on that list were known to have partisan affiliations, including Ms. Onochie. I don’t want to spend adjectives on this.

“Nigeria has had nine chairmen of Federal Electoral Commission popularly known as FEDECO; National Electoral Commission; National Electoral Commission of Nigeria and INEC, as we have called our election management bodies in succession, Yakubu would be the first to get a second term, if cleared by the senate.

“The job is all consuming and doesn’t give you room for a life. In my own estimation, anyone who does the job of INEC chair conscientiously for a full five years would not want to return for a second term. That is inherent in the nature of the brief,” he said.

Prof. Odinkalu argued that the performance of INEC under the current leadership has been, at best, mixed in his own opinion. “I could do worse. In 2015, the country hailed advances in data management under the then INEC chair, Prof Jega. You could also see that in the leaps in improvement in electoral legitimacy. In 2007, about 86.35 per cent of all votes ended up in the election tribunals.

“You will see these numbers, for instance, of PVC collection that don’t make sense. In many states you have collection rates as high as 94 to 96 per cent. In reality, you don’t need to exert a lot of effort to understand that this is demographically impossible, with deaths, internal migration and inertia.”

He said INEC has failed to institute a system for managing this in a way that makes people’s participation numbers credible and in that failure you see lots of room for manipulation.