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By Myke Agunwa
President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of Prof. Joash Amupitan (SAN) as INEC chairman has received the backing of Boniface Aniebonam, the founder of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP).
Speaking on Sunday in Lagos, Aniebonam addressed the controversy surrounding Mr. Amupitan’s appointment.
On October 7, the National Council of State nominated Prof. Amupitan as Mahmood Yakubu successor.
The Senate has not yet confirmed the appointment.
Aniebonam claims that the legal luminary already has a lot of work ahead of him and should get to work as soon as his appointment is verified.
“The first task for Amupitan is to change the battered image of INEC and return the trust of Nigerians in the umpire. INEC’s image has been so eroded over the years that the first task before Amupitan is righting the wrongs by the commission and re-creating confidence in it. Amupitan needs to study the commission thoroughly and correct issues currently before it that Mahmood ignored,” he said.
According to Aniebonam, the President and the members of the Federal Executive Council must have recognized Amupitan’s abilities before nominating him, emphasizing that the Tinubu is genuinely committed to fixing the problems in Nigeria starting with INEC.
“What we need in Nigeria at the moment shall be leaders who can take informed and hard decisions, if we must reinvent the Nigeria of our dreams. Our experience with INEC over the internal leadership crisis in NNPP have given us an insight into the ills of the commission and how the body worked sometimes.
“For the immediate past leadership of INEC to ignore subsisting court orders and directives to upload the NNPP new national executives was a shocker and very shameful to constitutional democracy
“What could have stopped the former INEC boss from obeying the court orders, should be looked into. These and many more are part of issues that can erode a people’s confidence in an institution. Amupitan has the choice to either follow the path of past INEC chairmen or write his name in diamond,” said the politician.
According to Mr Aniebonam, unattended matters, especially disobedience to court judgments should be cleared forthwith by the new INEC boss once confirmed.
”It is still like a day dream to us that some bad eggs in INEC connived and changed the logo and colour of NNPP symbols without the consent of its founding members and holder of the original certificate of registration.
“INEC did the conversion without asking or sighting the original certificate of registration of the NNPP. This simply means that anyone can approach INEC and change the logo and colour symbols of APC, PDP, Labour and others just like that,” said the politician.
He, however, said that the NNPP remained committed to joining Mr Tinubu to give the new INEC leadership maximum support, and hoped that Mr Amupitan would not be distracted in carrying out his duties.