15th December, 2021
President Muhammadu Buhari has replaced Lauretta Onochie’s nomination as national commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with Mrs May Agbamuche-Mbu.
This was after Mrs Onochie was rejected by the senate because her nomination violated the Federal Character Principle.
President Buhari reappointed Mbu who was confirmed an INEC commissioner by the 8th senate and who is also from Delta State to replace rejected Onochie.
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.
Olaniyi Olaleye Ijalaye (Ondo – South West) was nominated as Resident Electoral Commissioner.
The president called on Ahmed Lawan, the senate-president to confirm the nominees in a recent letter he sent to the legislature.
Lauretta Onochie’s nomination to be an INEC commissioner elicited mass outrage with scores of Nigerians and group petitioning the senate to outrightly reject her nomination.
She was seen as a rabid partisan, a member of the All Progressives Congress, who does not meet the criterion of neutrality that INEC job demands.
The senate eventually rejected her on the ground that her nomination violated the Federal Character principle.