The Senate, on Tuesday, rejected Lauretta Onochie as a National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Chairman of the Committee on INEC, Kabiru Gaya, in his report said Onochie did not satisfy the provisions of the Federal Character Principles.
The Senate subsequently voted against her nomination.
Onochie’s nomination sparked outrage.
Eight months after her recommendation by President Muhammadu Buhari, the nominee appeared before the Senate Committee on INEC last Thursday for screening in line with constitutional requirements.
In the course of her interaction with members of the panel, headed by a former Kano State Governor, Kabiru Gaya, Onochie, who is also Special Assistant to the President on Social Media, denied her membership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), remarking that she quit partisan politics in 2019.
But fresh documentary evidence showed otherwise, indicating that she sustained her membership and participation in APC’s activities beyond 2019 to as recent as June 22.
Some of the pieces of evidence included a copy of the first page of the membership register for Aniocha North Ward 4 of Delta State chapter of APC and a plaintiff’s witness statement on oath deposed to on June 30, 2021, at a Federal High Court in Abuja.
In the affidavit, which had her affixed photo, the presidential aide swore: “I, Lauretta Onochie, Nigerian citizen, of c/o 13 Nouakchott Street, Wuse Zone 1, Abuja, Nigeria, do make an oath and state as follows: That I am the plaintiff in this case by virtue of which I am conversant with the facts of this case.”
Reacting, INEC ex-chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, who appeared in a national television programme, warned the Senate against confirming Onochie for the post.
He urged President Buhari to save his administration the image problem Onochie’s nomination would cause INEC by withdrawing her appointment.
While reflecting on the hullabaloo the nomination has generated in the polity, the don declared: “This kind of controversy is really avoidable. The appointing authorities should be careful because you don’t want to appoint anybody that can raise suspicion or doubt or can lead to a loss of trust in the electoral management body.”
