Onochie: A Pleasant Rejection
The Senate, last week, did well by rejecting Mrs. Lauretta Onochie, President Muhammadu Buhari’s choice as Independent National Electoral Commissioner. Shola Oyeyipo writes
Not a few Nigerians heaved a big sigh of relief, when last Tuesday, the Nigerian Senate opted to throw out President Muhammadu Buhari’s nomination as National Commissioner for the Independent National Electoral Commissioner in the person of Lauretta Onochie. This followed sustained protests from Civil Society Organisations, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and other well-meaning Nigerians, who contended that the choice of the president’s Special Assistant on New Media was suspect.
The upper chamber of the National Assembly readily attributed her rejection to the issue of Federal Character and the need to adhere strictly to the Act. After considering the resolution of the Senator Kabiru Gaya (All Progressives Party, APC), Kano South-led committee on INEC, it was resolved that since Lauretha hails from Delta State, which already has May Agbamuche, who is the Chairman, Legal Services, INEC, a state cannot have two commissioners, but beyond that, her rejection was more, because Nigerians feared that there was a sinister motive behind her nomination.
Another issue raised by a coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) in a press conference in Abuja by a board member of YIAGA Africa, Ezenwa Nwagwu was that Onochies has dual citizenship that made her fall short of the constitutional requirements to occupy such position, going by the provisions of Sections 156(1a) and 66(1a) of the 1999 Constitution.
Her choice had been trailed by protests and calls to the Senate not to approve her nomination on the grounds that the decision was too partisan. She is perhaps the most controversial aide of President Buhari. Her die-hard support for the president made her notoriously popular on social media, where she has opted to engage in a war of words with any and everyone, who expressed opposition to her principal’s administration. Hence, the widespread concern that appointing such a partisan presidential spokesperson to serve as commissioner of a non-partisan electoral commission would only distract the body.
Some aspects of her controversial nomination and eventual rejection were food for thought and reasons to be concerned about the character of persons that should be allowed into leadership positions. In her desperate bid to clinch the INEC job, Onochie lied without batting an eyelid, to Nigerians and the Senate, that she was not an APC member. She bluntly told the Senator Gaya committee on three occasions that she stopped being a card-carrying member of the ruling APC in 2019 during her screening as INEC National Commissioner in July.
Her blatant lies readily gave her up as a dishnourable individual and a person with
open disregard for Nigerians, because a lot of people knew her as a staunch member of the APC and one with a penchant for vituperative attacks on anti-Buhari tendencies on the social media, which is her turf.
“I have learned, over the years, to stand with the constitution and due process but not on partisanship or sentiments. Since 2019, I have not had anything to do with any political organisation, including Buhari support groups. When APC was doing re-validation of party members, I did not take part in that exercise. As I’m sitting down here, I’m not a member of any political party in this country. I have no partisanship in my blood.
“I have seen many petitions against my nomination not only from the PDP but also from some APC members. I’m not partisan; they know. It is about the law. No one has any reason to fear for my nomination as INEC commissioner representing Delta. As far as I’m concerned, I’m Madam Due Process. That’s why all the attacks. I follow due process; I follow the law,” Onochie lied to the screening committee.
But not only did her media posts tie her to the APC, her picture in which she adorned herself with a gown bearing a large portrait photo of President Buhari at the front also hit the social media, and a 2021 affidavit to which she deposed as recently as June 30, at the FCT Court in a case involving her and one Emeka Ugwuonye, affirming her membership of the party surfaced and put a hole in her lies.
The takeaway from this is that just as any other Nigerian, who will try to circumvent truth in order to attract personal benefits, Onochie is not an exception. Her nomination was simply designed to impose a Buhari loyalist on INEC, by using the federal lawmakers to approve the highly contested nomination. This is the more reason many will agree with Senator Shehu Sani’s position that by declining her appointment, the federal lawmakers have saved “INEC from a serpent.”
Another disturbing dimension to the debate is, why did the presidency consider Onochie, a well-known Buhari sympathiser for such a job? Are there not reliably qualified non-partisan individuals out there that can do the job? As a government that won a victory over an incumbent president, when it had no opportunity to determine INEC chairman and commissioners, why the desperation to sneak one of their own into the electoral body? The only plausible answer to this is that the APC leadership is not oblivious of the fact that their party has significantly lost goodwill among the electorate and must therefore implant an agent in INEC for obvious reasons.
Apparently, these assumptions spurred so many people to antagonise her choice. Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike asserted that the APC attempted to force Onochie on INEC, because it was planning to rig the 2023 general election. Wike’s party, the PDP, also maintained that Onochie could not be trusted with such sensitive responsibility. The party’s national spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, noted that Onochie lied to Senator Kabiru Gaya-led Senate Committee on INEC and as such, she could not be trusted with the position of a national commissioner in INEC.
Surely, whatever reason was adduced to their rejection of Onochie, the federal lawmakers knew it was the best decision given the facts and evidence before them and they have been well applauded by Nigerians for confirming other nominees, including Prof. Muhammad Sani Kallah, (Katsina), Prof. Kunle Ajayi (Ekiti), Saidu Ahmad (Jigawa), Dr. Baba Bila (North-East) and Prof. Abdullahi Zuru (North-West), and rejecting Onochie thereby disallowing the President from insulting the collective sensibility of Nigerians.
Taking a cue from the Onochie issue, the federal lawmakers should learn to work more in the interest of the electorate, who voted them into office and not to satisfy the president, because democracy is about the people and not those in power alone.