Power, Works and Housing Minister, Honourable Babatunde Fashola has said that demands for the removal of Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) Professor Mahmood Yakubu, will disrupt the entire electoral process.
INEC postponement of presidential and National Assembly elections last weekend has since courted the anger and disappointment of political actors who accused him of incompetence.
Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Prince Uche Secondus, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party, respectively have separately called for the removal of Professor Yakubu. The former further called for the transfer of certain Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs whom he claimed have compromised their positions.
But speaking with newsmen in Abuja, the former Lagos state governor who incidentally is the Director, Election Monitoring and Planning, APC presidential campaign noted that removal of the INEC chairman would disrupt the entire electoral process.
He said:” Election and lack of elections have consequences. Many people have fought hard for this democracy, it has delivered uncomfortable results in the past as well as results we can live with and every effort to continue to improve it is an opportunity we must not turn our back on.
“Every party is disappointed, every well-meaning Nigerian is disappointed, but that is no reason to throw the baby away with the bath water. So, it is for the INEC Chairman and his team to reclaim the confidence of the people and show us that they can deliver on what they have been asked to do. If you ask him to resign, will that give us an election? If he resigns, will that give us an election? If the person who has been there for four years is having challenges now, who is prepared that will replace him and do what he has not been able to do in three and a half years? The party that is thinking that way does not even know how government work. The solution is for all Nigerian to rally round INEC to get it right and that is what we intend to do.
“We must not allow the action of anti-democratic agents dampen our enthusiasm. although a week looked like an eternity, it has trickled down and is getting closer to the rescheduled date.
Lending his voice to the controversy trailing the shoot at sight order remarks attributed to President Muhammadu Buhari, the former Lagos state governor said prospective voters with no evil motive have nothing to fear.
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“Once security agents are able to prevent people from snatching ballot boxes, the processes will be free. For those who are against the statement of the President, the question is, are you planning to snatch ballot boxes? What are you afraid of? What is your business with the wrong act if you want to do good? We say let everything be open and let the votes of Nigerians count. So, let us see who the real believer in the process is now because it is one man one vote.”
Fashola equally called on members of his party who would be deployed as agents on election day to be very vigilant.
“A lot of Nigerians have sacrificed greatly and sometimes supremely with their lives to give us this democracy. We must convert the disappointment of 16th February 2019 to an all-time determination on the 23rd of February 2019 that others have made. It is a democracy that will preserve our freedom and the vigilance, particularly those appointed to serve as agents of our party must be an all-time high. The vigilance of those appointed to serve as agents of our party must be an all-time high.”
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