Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, has been asked to resign from office with immediate effect. Jega was accused of having ethnic agenda with the commission’s recent creation of additional 30,000 polling units in the country. The chairman of the commission had defended the creation, saying that the action was meant to bring the total polling units in the country to 150,000 and that it would decongest the polling units ahead of the 2015 general elections. He also said it would help in easing the log ousts challenges of the commission during elections. But the Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly on Wednesday disagreed. Leaders of the group, which included former Vice President, Chief Alex Ekwueme; a former Federal Minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark; and Sen. Femi Okorounmu, said the action was not justifiable. They stated this after the group’s meeting, which was held in Abuja on Wednesday. It was also the opinion of the group that President Goodluck Jonathan should immediately re-organize the composition and the structure of the commission immediately. According to a communique issued at the end of the group’s meeting in Abuja, the group said it was wrong for Jega to have done what he did. The communique said, “Jega cannot exculpate himself from being a proponent of ethic agenda; we are the least surprised that he has been recruited to perfect the ploy of some persons from parts of this country to truncate our nascent democracy. “With the indefensible employment of proportional representation and equality as parameters, Jega decided not to equilibrate but to marginalize the entire southern Nigeria by arbitrarily and capriciously allocating 21,615 polling units to the North as against 8,412 polling units to Southern Nigeria. “Whereas we have clearly argued the lack of need for any additional polling units given the reduced number of registered voters consequent upon the Automated Fingers Identification System. “Creating a phantom 30,000 polling units and whimsically allocating them to favour the North is the height of insult to the people of Southern Nigeria.” They said Jega might have thought the country was still under military rule when the said actions and decisions were taken without discretion to undermine and trample upon the rights of people without challenge. In the additional units, the commission allocated additional 7,906 to the North-West, North-East got 5,291 while the North-Central had 6,318 units The South-West was allocated 4,160, South-South had 3,087 while the South-East had 1,167 units.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 18:27:25 +0000
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