July 13, (THEWILL) – The controversy surrounding the appointment of Ms. Lauretta Onochie as President Muhammadu Buhari’s nominee as a Commissioner in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been laid to rest, with the rejection of her nomination by the Nigerian Senate, Tuesday morning.
Onochie, the President’s Media Aide, was nominated by Buhari as a Federal Commissioner in INEC to fill the vacant slot of the South-South.
Signs that her appointment would fall flat first came when on Tuesday the Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Senator Kabiru Gaya, reported that Onochie’s appointment failed to satisfy the provisions of the Federal Character Principles.
When her nomination was subsequently put to vote by the Senate as a committee of the whole, the “NAYS” overwhelmingly voted against her nomination.
She had last Thursday faced the screening of nominees for appointment as National Commissioners of the electoral body.
However, other nominees to INEC made the cut, including: Professor Muhammad Sani Kallah (Katsina); Professor Kunle Cornelius Ajayi (Ekiti); Saidu Babura Ahmad (Jigawa); Professor Sani Muhammad Adam (North-Central) and Dr. Baba Bila (North East).
Leaders of political parties, civil society organisations and lawmakers, among others, had condemned her inclusion in the list of nominees.
They argued that her partisanship as a registered member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State disqualified her from a position in a body expected to moderate elections.
However, Ms. Onochie maintained that she had since relinquished that membership.
The opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) joined those who insisted that Ms. Lauretta Onochie be disqualified.
Since Buhari sent the names to the Senate for confirmation in October 2020, PDP and civil society singled out Onochie for disqualification, insisting that her impartiality and integrity as a member of the nation’s electoral umpire could not be guaranteed.
PDP’s last Thursday statement, made after Onochie’s Senate screening, had National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, charging her with lying.
Ologbondiyan said inter alia: “Nigerians were amused to watch Lauretta Onochie, a nationally known APC front runner, as she spewed falsehood before the Senator Kabiru Gaya-led Senate Committee on INEC in denial of her membership of the APC.
“With her lies, Lauretta Onochie, a die-in-the-wool APC member, whose name appears as Number 2 on the Ward 4 register of the APC in Aniocha Local Government Area of Delta State, has further demonstrated her lack of integrity to be trusted with the position of a national commissioner in INEC.
“Now that the facts of Onochie’s partisanship have been further laid bare before the Senate, the PDP urges the Senator Gaya Committee on INEC to stand on the side of the Constitution and the sanctity of our electoral process by outrightly rejecting the nomination of Lauretta Onochie as INEC Commissioner.”
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