Fayose tackles INEC over plans for offences’ panel

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has flayed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, over subtle moves to establish the Electoral Offences Tribunal, saying the electoral umpire needs to first purge itself of “partisanship and election manipulations.”

In a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, the governor alleged that “INEC under the present dispensation is the number one electoral offender and that electoral reform without INEC neutrality is a mirage.”

He claimed that any such panel established now would only be used against opposition parties.

“Even though the establishment of Electoral Offences Tribunal is not entirely a bad idea, but INEC as presently constituted does not encourage free, fair and violence free election and it should worry Prof. Yakubu that INEC as at today, is being referred to as Inconclusive National Electoral Commission because of the commission’s partisanship,” Fayose further alleged.