In Enugu, INEC Vows To Drag Politicians To Court Over Unsubstantiated Allegations

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria, News From The State Wednesday, March 13th, 2019

From Ignatius Okpara

ENUGU, NIGERIA (AFRICAN EXAMINER) – The independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in Enugu state, South- East Nigeria, has threatened to drag certain opposition politicians in the state to court over wild and reckless allegations made against the commission during the 2019 general elections.

Certain political parties had during the elections, accused the Enugu Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dr. Emeka Ononamadu of compromising his office.

Speaking Tuesday during the 2019 post general elections media briefing held at the state INEC headquarters in Enugu, Ononamadu said that INEC was not ready to condone reckless allegations that cast aspersions on the electoral process.

“I am also studying those wide allegations for possibilities of seeking court redress, because it is not only politicians that can always take INEC to court. INEC and its staff equally have a name to protect, we are not going to tolerate reckless allegation that cast aspersion on our democracy and electoral process.

He posited that the polls in Enugu was adjudged to be best in recent times, “although, certain political groups effortlessly tried to falsely label INEC, security agencies and Central Bank in an attempt to find one way or the other to scuttle the process, the maturity exhibited by citizens was enough to send their plans to the cleaners.

“We are moving towards a direction when nobody will get away with any unsubstantiated allegation that robs off on the credibility of an election’’ he confirmed.

He however, thanked all stakeholders who participated in the election in the state for displaying,” a rare attitude in this era of extreme political rascality displayed in different states during this election, which made the job of extremely difficult for most of my skilled colleagues in other states.

“This is a testimony that democracy is reaching its maturity stage in Enugu and we hope that other parts of Nigeria will emulate the level of peaceful conduct exhibited during the general election.”

The Enugu REC decried the level of voter apathy recorded in the state during both the Presidential and Gubernatorial election in the state calling on the people to objectively access the activities of the commission in the state.

“While we had teething logistics challenge during the Presidential election, we overcame all of those challenges during the Governorship election and became the first state that had the all the 4,145 polling locations to open before 8am on the Election Day.

According to him, “the only snag which I did not know the main reason was the voters’ apathy which saw less than half a million voters coming out to vote out of the 1.9 million registered voters and the 1.7 million voters with PVCs.

Ononamadu declared that “we wish to announce that we have fulfilled our promise to Nigerians living in Enugu. Now is the time to review our performances in the face of numerous challenges among which are some uncontrollable variables. We want you to be objective and fair in your assessment of our performance.

Our Correspondent reports that the media briefing was attended by top management staff of INEC in the State.