By George Mgbeleke<\/p>\n
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has tasked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with clarifying allegations that some of the postings and deployments recently carried out by the electoral body may have been \u201cethnically motivated\u201d and given preference to officials from President Bola Tinubu\u2019s South-West.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party said it is in possession of intelligence and \u201cdirect complaints\u201d regarding recent personnel changes and redeployments in some of the Commission\u2019s \u201cstrategic departments and stations.”<\/p>\n
The opposition party said it has received information that several officers from nothern part of the country who had served in departments like Electoral Operations and ICT are being moved away to other departments. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have specific names of officers moved from Electoral Operations and ICT in a number of northern states and replaced with officers from Lagos and other South-West states. INEC may dismiss this as routine. But we have noticed a pattern, especially along ethnic lines, and we are concerned,\u201d the party said.<\/p>\n
ADC said that while it is not accusing INEC of any \u201cnefarious\u201d plans yet, it believes that any suspicion or allegation that potentially undermines trust in and the credibility of the electoral umpire must not be dismissed lightly.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially if those allegations border on sectional bias that could actively undermine the neutrality of election officials and the Commission\u2019s own impartiality,\u201d the party said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRegardless of the Commission\u2019s motives, questions about regional concentration in sensitive departments cannot be brushed aside as routine administrative matters. And concentrating strategic operational appointments in a manner that suggests ethnic or sectional bias to give an advantage to President Tinubu and the APC must not be ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ADC urged INEC Chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan, to publish the postings, selection criteria and reasons for the changes to reassure all citizens in every part of the country that they would be treated fairly and their electoral choice would not be undermined just because they speak a different language or come from another part of the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cAllowing such allegations to go without a serious, evidence-based rebuttal could have serious implications for the integrity of the elections,\u201d the party warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has tasked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with clarifying allegations that some of the postings and deployments recently carried out by the electoral body may have been \u201cethnically motivated\u201d and given preference to officials from President Bola Tinubu\u2019s South-West. In a statement issued by its National […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18453,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18452\/revisions\/18453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}