PDP insists on removal of INEC chair, says Zakari in “strong relationship” with Buhari

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, says it will continue to demand the removal of the Acting Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Amina Zakari, as resolved in its 403rd National Working Committee, NWC, meeting, despite unwarranted attacks on its officials by the Presidency.

The party said it is privy to the fact that “Mrs. Zakari who has a strong relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari and a very prominent APC Northwest governor, is collaborating with the ruling party to post Resident Electoral Commissioners of its choice to Kogi and Bayelsa ahead of the forthcoming governorship elections in those states”.

The PDP claimed there were moves to use the period of Mrs. Zakari’s stay as head of the commission to tinker with electoral personnel and materials for the two states in favour of the APC.

The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in a statement on Saturday said “President Buhari, in appointing Mrs. Zakari, failed to take into cognizance the moral call to detach himself from the operation of the electoral body thereby completely eroding the independence of the commission”.

The party said the issue at stake is not that of Mrs. Zakari’s competence or performance in office but the fact of nepotism and her closeness to the President and some key APC leaders, which calls into question the independence of the electoral body under her.

“We want Nigerians to know that with this appointment, INEC has been stripped of its independence and can no longer command the confidence and respect of the citizens and all other critical stakeholders in the nation’s electoral process.

“We however find it astonishing, discouraging and disheartening that the spokesperson of the President will address Nigerians and lie to the entire citizenry that Mrs. Zakari never had any relationship with the President or an APC Governor in the Northwest. This is the height of deception coming from the respected office of the President of our dear country.

“We ask, is the spokesperson of the President, oblivious of the public fact that the Acting Chairman of INEC was once a staff of Afri-Project Consortium, a company well associated with the President?

“Is he by any means feigning ignorance of the fact that Mrs. Zakari also worked in the past as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Social Development and later, that of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Federal Capital Development Authority, then under a current APC governor of the Northwest?

“How much of Mrs. Zakari’s roles in the last general elections does the spokesperson of the President, who has just been appointed, know to warrant his brazen defence?

The PDP stressed that as long as the Acting Chairman remains in office, it would not recognize the electoral body as the Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC, but as the National Electoral Commission, NEC.