Ohanaeze Youth Council Reacts To Call For INEC Chairman’s Removal

The Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide, has rejected the call for the removal of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu.

Naija News reports that the organisation is reacting to the call by a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba, that President Bola Tinubu should sack the INEC Chairman.

Agbakoba, who hailed the suspension of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, as well as the chairman of the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),  Abdulrasheed Bawa, said the failure to remove the INEC Chairman will impede Tinubu’s reform task.

However, in a statement issued to newsmen in Kaduna on Saturday, the National President of the Ohaneze Nd’Igbo Youth Council, Okwu Nnabuike, said there was no need for Yakubu’s sack at the moment.

Nnabuike noted that though he agreed with Agbakoba on the other decisions taken by the Tinubu presidency, it is wrong to totally disparage the efforts of the electoral commission.

He asserted that despite the shortcomings witnessed during the 2023 general elections, it was one of the best elections ever conducted in Nigeria’s history.

Nnabuike added that any attempt to remove the INEC boss at this time was ill-timed as aggrieved candidates are before the election tribunals, adding that Yakubu should be allowed to remain in office pending the conclusion of the cases.

He said, “In the same election conducted by Yakubu, we had sitting governors lose elections across the country; we had popular National Assembly members lose the election. This did not happen before in the country’s election.

“We are not making excuses for the lapses during the elections, but it is wrong to totally disparage the efforts of the commission. There is no perfect election in any part of the world, even the United States, which prides itself as the capital of world democracy.

“Any attempt to remove Yakubu at this time was ill-timed as aggrieved candidates are before the election tribunals ventilating their anger; how then can we remove the INEC chairman on whose table the buck stops?

“Yakubu should be allowed to remain as the INEC helmsman at least pending the conclusion of the cases.”