The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to withdraw the names sent to the Senate for confirmation as commissioners of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and include people of outstanding integrity and capability to deliver.
The National President of AYCF, Alhaji Shettima Yerima, in a statement, said “anything short of appointing credible people as INEC commissioners” could jeopardise the credibility of the 2023 general elections.
AYCF queried why Professor Okey lbeanu was denied tenure renewal when he supervised a credible election in Anambra.
Yerima said, “Why should an honest and straight-forward personality like AVM Mu’azu be refused a second tenure and why should the National Commissioner Engineer Nahuche be regarded as a very disciplined person, resign from INEC when our public institutions like the electoral body need such people to promote and propagate the institutional values that INEC is meant to promote?”
“Why should someone like the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of Sokoto, Alhaji Sadiq Musa Abubakar, who demonstrated character and integrity in the 2019 election not be appointed as a national commissioner?”
AYCF demanded that the few RECs that had shown uncommon integrity be given sensitive positions in INEC.
The president had in a letter read by the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, during plenary on December 14 requested confirmation of some national commissioners and RECs appointed to replace the outgoing ones.
