School advocates for law to ban party members, political appointees from holding positions in INEC

By Musa Baba Adamu

The Abuja School of Social and Political Thought (TAS), has recommended a constitutional amendment barring political party members and appointees from appointments to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The TAS, a non-political group, made the recommendation at a dialogue on its ‘National Action Plan for Electoral Reform’ in Abuja.
The group said that such appointments should be made or considered five years after holding the political positions.
Director of TAS, Sam Amadi, presenting an overview of the document, also recommended a post-tenure restriction, barring INEC leaders from joining political parties or accepting political appointments until five years after completing their terms.
Mr Amadi said the project, supported by other stakeholders, contained proposals for the ongoing electoral reforms to ensure impartial and merit-based appointments for INEC leadership.
He said while INEC had made significant improvements, there has been a growing debate around the appointment of its members.
“What the Abuja school has done is to propose a reform to enact the Uwais Report recommendation, transferring the appointment of INEC Chairman, Commissioners, and Resident Electoral Commissioners from the President to the National Judicial Council,” he said.
Mr Amadi noted that to achieve this, the group proposed that the constitutional amendment should prohibit individuals from being appointed as INEC chairman, commissioner, or RECs if they held a party leadership position.
He said such individual should also be barred if he was a registered member of a political party, or held a federal or state government-appointed position in the last five years.
He added that INEC appointees should also be barred from holding party membership, serving in party positions, or occupying appointive political offices for five years after their tenure.
To enhance transparency and accountability through technology, the report proposed reforms to mandate the electronic transmission of polling unit results to a secure, publicly accessible INEC portal.
He said reforms must mandate electoral officers and witnesses to sign polling unit results after counting, which must be released immediately to the public and uploaded on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
Mr Amadi said the report also proposed an expansion of ‘locus standi’ to allow voters, credible citizens, and any candidate in an election to challenge the outcome if they deemed that it violated the Electoral Act substantially.
He called for more investment in electoral reforms, stating, “Our view is that democracy structurally is a good conflict avoidance and conflict management structure. So, rather than abandon democracy, we should invest more effort in making electoral democracy work.”
The president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, urged all Nigerians to prevail on the members of the National Assembly to ensure the electoral law was reformed.
Mr Ajaero said there was still much time to achieve electoral reform.