The Senate on Tuesday, July 13, declined to confirm Lauretta Onochie, one of President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s nominees, for the position of National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The Senate Committee on INEC, chaired by Senator Kabiru Gaya considered Onochie\u2019s nomination alongside six others. In its report however, it declined to recommend Onochie for confirmation as National commissioner, stating that it did so to avoid violating the Federal Character Principle contained in section 14(3) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, as INEC currently has a National Commissioner from Delta State, where Onochie hails from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Onochie is the\nPresident\u2019s Special Assistant on Social Media and has been nominated twice to\nserve as an official of INEC, first in October 2020 and again in June 2021. Onochie\u2019s\nnomination attracted several petitions from civil society organisations (CSOs)\nand other concerned Nigerians on the basis of her membership of the ruling All\nProgressives Congress (APC) and the subsisting tenure of a National Commissioner\nfrom Delta State. Observers worried that Onochie\u2019s apparent support for the President and the APC meant that she\nfailed to meet the criterion of non-partisanship required for membership of\nINEC as stipulated in Item F, paragraph 14(2) of the third schedule to the 1999\nNigerian Constitution. CSOs underscored the need to ensure that the composition\nof INEC remains transparently non-partisan and independent of political bias,\nin addition to the need to strengthen the integrity of Nigeria\u2019s electoral system\nand the confidence of the electorate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Nigerians laud the\nSenate\u2019s move declining to confirm Ms. Lauretta Onochie\u2019s for appointment,\nconcerns have arisen over the Senate\u2019s basis for its decision, which did not\ninclude Onochie\u2019s partisanship and membership of the APC, and if this leaves a\npossibility of her renomination when the tenure of the serving National Commissioner\nfrom Delta State comes to an end. Speaking on the Senate\u2019s rejection of\nOnochie\u2019s appointment, the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, a platform of\nover seventy CSOs in a press briefing led by its Convener, Ms. Ene Obi, urged \u201cPresident Buhari to nominate a qualified and\nnon-partisan woman to replace the nomination of Ms. Lauretta Onochie<\/em>\u2026\u201d The platform reiterated that, \u201c<\/em>\u2026 it is unconstitutional for anybody in\npartisan politics to be in INEC and this should be taken into consideration\nwith respect to subsequent nominations for positions at the Electoral\nCommission<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Senate on Tuesday, July 13, declined to confirm Lauretta Onochie, one of President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s nominees, for the position of National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The Senate Committee on INEC, chaired by Senator Kabiru Gaya considered Onochie\u2019s nomination alongside six others. In its report however, it declined to recommend Onochie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[385,386],"class_list":["post-2187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lauretta-onochie","tag-senate-rejects-onochie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2187"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2196,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187\/revisions\/2196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}