INEC Commissioner: Buhari replaces Lauretta Onochie with his in-law

Ilesanmi AdekanbiDecember 15, 2021

3 minutes read

President Muhammadu Buhari has reappointed May Agbamuche Mbu (Delta, South-South) as National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Mbu was appointed by the President on Tuesday to replace his Personal Assistant on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie whose earlier nomination was rejected by the Senate.

The presidential aide was rejected following the report by the Senate Committee on (INEC), Senator Kabir Gaya who said her nomination breaches Federal Character principles.

Kabir Gaya cited Section 14 (1) 3 of the Constitution, stating that somebody was already a Commissioner from her zone, and the law remains clear about that.

The committee said there is currently a serving commissioner from Delta state, where Onochie hails from.

President Buhari also nominated Ukeagu Kenneth Nnamdi (Abia – South East), Major General A. B. Alkali (rtd) – (Adamawa, North East), Engr. (Prof.) Rhoda H. Gumus (Bayelsa – South-South), Mr Sam Olumekan (Ondo – South West) as National Commissioners of INEC and Olaniyi Olaleye Ijalaye (Ondo – South West), Mohammed Haruna (Niger, North Central) as Resident Electoral Commissioner.

Buhari in a letter dated December 10, 2021, and forwarded to the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, urged the apex chamber to confirm the nominees.

The nomination of Onochie as commissioner of the electoral body in October had stirred reaction with political parties calling for her rejection on the grounds that she was too partisan to serve in a sensitive institution.

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Onochie was also accused of being a card-carrying member of the All Progressives Congress.

However, some of these are less-than-ideal appointments; though, they are still awaiting the confirmation of the Senate.

For instance, May Agbamuche-Mdu, re-appointed as a National Commissioner, is a former girlfriend of the Emir of Bichi, Nasiru Ado-Bayero, sources told SaharaReporters on Tuesday.

Agbamuche-Mdu had previously served as INEC Commissioner from Delta until President Buhari appointed Lauretta Onochie, his aide and a card-carrying member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), to take the position in October 2020.

However, the Senate rejected Onochie’s nomination in July 2021.

Buhari in the letter read by the Senate President, Lawan, during plenary on Tuesday listed Agbamuche-Mbu as representing Delta State.

Sources gathered that Agbamuche-Mbu was nominated by Timipre Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources.

“Agbamuche, a former girlfriend to Emir of Bichi, who is the father-in-law of Buhari’s daughter, has been reappointed by Buhari as INEC Commissioner. She was nominated by Timipre Sylva,” one of the sources said.

Another person said to have been brought into the government by Sylva was Prof. Nelson Brambaifa, who led interim management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

In December 2019, Brigadier-General Charles Nengite, a top-ranked soldier in the Nigerian Army, as well as his wife, were arrested by the United States authorities for an unexplained $16 million found in the wife’s account, SaharaReporters reports.

And it was learnt that Brambaifa and another former Managing Director of the NDDC, Nsima Ekere, were found to have been involved in the launder of slush funds as they both facilitated how Nengite laundered money from the commission through contracts awarded to him.

It was reported that between 2016 and 2019, Nengite was drafted to the NDDC where he allegedly benefitted from billions of naira in contracts while there.

The reappointment of Mallam Mohammed Haruna (Niger State) – North Central as National Commissioner is another appointment of an oldie by Buhari as the nominee is 70 years old.

He was born in Ibadan (in present Oyo State) on September 22, 1951, and had his primary education in Kano and later attended Government College, Bida, in his hometown in Niger State between 1965 and 1969.

But apart from being old, it learnt from a source close to Haruna that he is also “sick”.

Haruna worked with the New Nigerian Newspapers Company Ltd between 1976 and 1989, where he rose from a Reporter to Managing Director and was later a columnist critical of INEC until his appointment suddenly knocked the spirit of criticism out of him, it was learnt.

His appointment is somewhat similar to how Buhari re-nominated an 82-year old retired justice, Sylvanus Nsofor, over a month after his nomination as a non-career ambassador was rejected by the Senate.

Eventually, the Senate confirmed the appointment of Nsofor, who was favoured by Buhari because he was the only Appeal Court judge with a dissenting vote against the exercise that had returned Olusegun Obasanjo, then incumbent and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as the winner of the Presidential race in 2003.

Buhari, who ran under the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), had challenged the result of the election. But while the other appeal court judges okayed the outcome, Nsofor accused Obasanjo and the PDP of engaging in violence and intimidation tactics.

Nsofor died in December 2020 at the age of 85.

“National Commissioner, Festus Okoye was also reappointed; this is a former activist who is now corrupted to the bone. Same as Kenneth,” another source noted.