8th July, 2021
By Muhaimin Olowoporoku
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on the senate to outrightly reject the nomination of Lauretta Onochie as INEC Commissioner.
This comes after the President Muhammadu Buhari’s aide denied being a member of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC).
She, however, admitted swearing to an oath at an Abuja Federal High Court that she was a member of the APC.
In her defence, she said she stopped being a member of the ruling party immediately after the 2019 elections. Onochie also said she did not partake in the revalidation of membership of the party held early 2021.
In response to her denial of being a member of the APC, the PDP in a statement on Thursday titled ‘PDP to Onochie: Stop the denial, You are a member of APC’ told the legislature to deny her nomination.
The statement signed by spokesperson of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, noted that Onochie lied to the Senator Kabiru Gaya-led Senate Committee on INEC.
They noted that with her lies, she cannot be trusted with the position of a national commissioner in INEC.
“Nigerians were amused to watch Lauretta Onochie, a nationally known APC front runner, as she spewed falsehood before the Senator Kabiru Gaya-led Senate Committee on INEC in denial of her membership of the APC, the statement read in part.
“With her lies, Lauretta Onochie, a die in the wool APC member, whose name appears as number 2 on the ward 4 register of the APC in Aniocha Local Government Area of Delta State, has further demonstrated her lack of integrity to be trusted with the position of a national commissioner in INEC.”
“Lauretta Onochie in her escapade in the Senate may have forgotten that the lawmakers and Nigerians, in general, are aware of her subsisting oath filed in a pending suit in court affirming her membership of the APC, which she further reinforced and adopted under cross-examination in the same matter very recently.
“With such proclivity to desperate denials in the face of the truth, allowing Lauretta Onochie, anywhere near INEC, would pollute the commission as well as the conduct of elections by the commission.”
“Now that the facts of Onochie’s partisanship has been further laid bare before the Senate, the PDP urges the Senator Gaya Committee on INEC to stand on the side of the constitution and the sanctity of our electoral process by outrightly rejecting the nomination of Lauretta Onochie as INEC Commissioner,” the statement concluded.