The Labour Party (LP) has said the new chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Joash Amupitan (SAN), must prove to the world that he is not another electoral vampire out to serve the dictates of incumbents and ballot moneybags for his personal enrichment like most of his predecessors.
The interim national publicity secretary of LP, Prince Tony Akeni, in a statement on Friday said the nation’s new chief electoral officer must demonstrate that he is
a true electoral umpire out to serve and save Nigeria’s long troubled democracy.
“Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan has a fate larger than life thrust at his feet. To either redeem the largest democracy in Africa or further mutilate and bury its corpse which the ballot master-liar of all time, Prof. Yakubu Mahmood, has left behind as INEC chairman.
“Above the pecks, glamour and glitter of the highly visible office which Prof. Amupitan now occupies, he must choose what he wishes to achieve and be remembered for. He must choose who he will serve and the legacy he wishes to leave behind for his name and posterity,” Akeni said.
The said the incoming INEC chairman must choose whether to be honoured by more than 230 million Nigerians who employed President Bola Tinubu or to serve the unconstitutional wishes and caprices of a single man, Tinubu, who appointed him.
He said to help him make that choice, Prof. Amupitan would do well to reflect how more than 230 million Nigerians at home and all over the world would forever remember his immediate predecessor, Prof. Yakubu Mahmood.
“Under the Obasanjo years, when Nigerians’ thought Prof. Maurice Iwu, the INEC chairman at the time, was the worst electoral referee that happened to Nigeria, Prof. Attahiru Jega happened to Nigeria and erased that record.
