Ignore criticism of Onochie’s appointment, APC tells Senate
By Emmanuel Awosika
The APC has urged the Senate to ignore criticism trailing the appointment of presidential aide, Lauretta Onochie, as a National Commissioner in the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The APC said the Onochie’s appointment has been subject to “rash, subjective, misplaced and selective criticism by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and some interest groups”.
Speaking in a statement released by its Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, the party accused PDP of hypocrisy, noting that some of its card-carrying members were electoral officers.
It said: “Perhaps the PDP needs to be reminded that one of its card-carrying members, Dr. Johnson Alalibo is the current Edo State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC).
“Alalibo who was also a former Deputy Whip in the Bayelsa State House of Assembly has been an electoral asset to the PDP but that is an issue to be addressed another day”, the ruling party stated.”
It urged the Senate to “stick with the facts” and ignore the PDP’s allegations of partisanship in the appointment of Onochie.
“Since public service now equates ‘partisanship’ we invite the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to equally fault appointment of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the current INEC Chairman who was the immediate-past Executive Secretary of the government’s Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) as well as the earlier stated Dr. Johnson Alalibo.
“We equally invite the PDP to query the ‘unquestionable integrity’ of brazen PDP apologists such as Festus Okoye, National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee of INEC; Mike Igini, Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Akwa Ibom State, among others.
“We challenge the PDP to point to any of its defunct 16-year administrations that defended and guaranteed the Executive arm of government’s non-interference in INEC’s operation and the true independence of the electoral commission as President Buhari’s government has done,” the APC said in its statement.
