Niger REC wants INEC unbundled

The Resident Electoral Commissioner for Niger State, Professor Samuel Gabriel Egwu, has called for the unbundling of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to enable it face its major assignment of conducting credible elections in the country.

Professor Egwu made the call in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, while speaking with journalists.

He said the functions of the commission were too much for one organization to bear and for a country as vast as Nigeria.

He therefore suggested that the commission should be made to face the task of solely managing and administering elections which, according to him, were enough responsibility for a body like INEC.

He highlighted some of the functions of the commission to include registration of political parties, regulate and monitor political parties including their finances, carrying out sound knowledge of democratic society, registration of voters and updating of voters register on a continuous basis as well as procuring ballot boxes.

The don therefore advocated the need to create a new and dedicated body out of the present INEC that would take on issues like registration and regulating political parties.

According him, prosecuting electoral offenses was another major to task that involved the police and other institutions of justice administration which ordinarily, the commission should not be saddled with.

On the 2019 general elections, Egwu disclosed that INEC had moved Nigeria’s electoral process to a point where Nigerians could not demand for anything less, hence the need for collaboration of all stakeholders while the commission itself must behave truly as an unbiased umpire.