INEC: You Are Unpatriotic, CSO Slams Adams Oshiomole

The Centre for Public Accountability has described the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Comrade Adams Oshiomole, as an unpatriotic person, who is undeserving of occupying the position of the leader of the ruling party in the country.

CPA made this position known during a media interaction with the media on Thursday.

Speaking through its Executive Director, Olufemi Akindele-Lawson, CPA said it was reacting to a statement recently credited to Comrade Oshiomole, where he said he will not forgive INEC for postponing the 2019 Presidential election earlier in February this year.

CPA further asserted that it is concerned that the latest attack on INEC by the APC Chairman, is just one, in the series of verbal assaults that Oshiomole has been visiting on the commission, before, during and after the conduct of the general elections, all of which are targeted at tarnishing the image of the electoral commission and undermine the gains that were recorded in the conduct of the elections by INEC.

“It is really worrisome that those whose democratic credentials have no iota of credibility are today, attempting to forcefully present themselves to Nigerians, as champions of electoral integrity and democracy. How easily will Nigerians forget that Comrade Adams Oshiomole knows next to nothing in the conduct of elections and transparent leadership? Is he not the same man who conducted the fiasco called the APC primaries for the Bayelsa Governorship election in September 2015; masterminded the postponement of the Edo Governorship election in September 2016; unilaterally changed the dates of his party’s primaries for the 2019 General Elections several times; and conducted the most opaque primaries in APC for the recent general elections resulting in the nullification of over 70 primaries conducted by APC nationwide by court order thus far, including the forfeiture of all elective positions in Rivers and Zamfara States, by his party?” CPA queried.

CPA also said the APC National Chairman should by now be more concerned about how to save his job, which is now being threatened as a result of his “dictatorial tendencies which has led to his Deputy National Chairman, asking him to resign, having led the ruling party to defeat in the 2019 elections, after winning less states than it had in 2015.”

The Civil Society organisation also asked Nigerians to consider Comrade Oshiomole’s regular diatribes against INEC, as a unpatriotic conduct, just as it said it is not in the nation’s interest.

“We wish to warn Comrade Oshiomole that using the privileged position of the National chairmanship of the ruling party, to advance selfish causes borne out of his personal inordinate ambitions and desperation to control institutions outside his power, will only amount to fighting the collective aspirations of Nigerians, whose mandate the INEC has and have been protecting.”

The group also asked the APC National Chairman to bury his ego and do a comparison of the State of affairs in INEC today and the past, as far as proficiency, electoral integrity and accountability are concerned under the present crops of INEC’s management team.

“We wish to inform Nigerians and the international community, especially those who have continued to partner with INEC in promoting the standard of our elections, that the diatribes of Comrade Adams Oshiomole, a man whose records of corruption as the Governor of Edo State are still haunting him, are not only irresponsible but are part of his many propaganda aimed at making INEC the culprit, for his personal failures, as the National Chairman of his party, APC. The accusations of Comrade Oshiomole against INEC, are not only malicious but are false, unsubstantiated and with intent to damage the reputation and standing of the INEC as an institution, in the estimation of right-thinking Nigerians,” CPA said.

The organisation, further concluded that the “actions of Comrade Oshiomole and some politicians like him have in the past, caused damages to the country’s quest for a truly independent electoral commission and undermined our country’s electoral integrity.

We are therefore not surprised that the decision of the incumbent leadership of the INEC, not to succumb to the dictates and wishes of politicians like Adams Oshiomole, has necessitated this continuous assaults on the commission.”

“It is of interest to note that more progress would have been made in the past, if INEC had been as Independent as we have today and if the commission hadn’t been subjected to harassment and interference by characters like Adams Oshiomole.

“Nigerians need to understand at this point, that any attack on INEC is an attack on all of us, and as such must be condemned by every patriotic Nigerians,” it concluded.

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