The Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA), Dr. Chima Amadi yesterday said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) experienced internal sabotage during the last general elections because some partisan Nigerians were appointed as Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs).

He said it was unfortunate that there was no sufficient pressure to resist such appointments.

He commended INEC’s plan to prosecute 215 people who allegedly committed electoral offences during the poll.

Amadi, who made the submissions in a paper at the 19th All Nigeria Editors Conference (ANEC) in Uyo, Akwa Ibom said it was time to stop politicians from interfering with the electoral system.

He said: “The occurrence of internal sabotage of the electoral process was to be expected. In the months before the 2023 elections, several Resident Election Commissioners (RECs) were appointed and sworn into office.

“These appointments were made in apparent violation of the provisions of the law and in spite of protestations by many stakeholders over their partisan pasts.

“These included at least a former governorship candidate of a political party; the younger sister of the South East National Vice President of a political party; a former civil servant dismissed from service in a state on account of corruption, and the manager of a hotel belonging to a politician who served as minister at the time of the appointment.

“A cursory study of the electoral trends will show that many illegal activities occurred and attempts at disrupting the system occurred in the states where these people were posted to serve.

“I do not believe there was sufficient public pressure to resist these appointments and attempts at sabotaging the electoral process from within.

“I also do not believe that enough was done to bring this issue to the limelight.”

He added: “The announcement that the Commission intends to prosecute as many as 215 people for various electoral offences is commendable.

“If you recall, in the aftermath of the 2019 elections, the Commission prosecuted as many as 300 people for various electoral offences and secured over 200 convictions. What this means is that it is establishing a pattern for the arrest, prosecution and conviction of electoral offenders – something that was never done before.” (The Nation)

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