Zakari: Ohanaeze raises alarm, HURIWA condemns appointment

President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, has told Nigerians to hold the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Federal Government responsible should anything happen to the country’s democracy.

Reacting to the appointment of Mrs. Amina Zakari, a national commissioner, as head of presidential election collation committee by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nwodo said it was bad enough that she was allowed to continue to serve in INEC and called on her to resign from the commission, because of her blood relation to President Muhammadu Buhari.

“It is like Rangers versus Kano Pillars and Kano Pillars is allowed to nominate a referee. It is impossible for justice to be done. In a civilised clime, Amina Zakari should have resigned.

“I expected the All Progressives Congress (APC) government, having come to power through a free and fair election conducted by another President, not to destroy the history.

“I call on Amina Zakari to honourably resign. Whatever happens to our democracy tomorrow, they (INEC and Federal Government) should hold themselves responsible.

“With continued membership of Mrs. Zakari in the commission, the corporate personality of INEC is seriously whittled down and making her head of collation committee is worse than anything anybody can imagine,” he said.
Also, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has described Zakari’s appointment as an aberration, saying the forthcoming presidential poll has already been technically manipulated.

HURIWA, therefore, asked the National Assembly to declare a state of electoral emergency and pass a vote of no confidence on the hierarchy of the INEC, which would translate into the dissolution of the election management board and the appointment of a brand new team of impartial and patriotic Nigerians to head the electoral body and conduct free, fair, transparent and unbiased presidential and other elections next month.

The human rights group, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, said this process must be done as the only way to insulate the election from the already compromised preparation put in place by the present administration’s handpicked Yakubu.

It said: “We have on many occasions asked for the removal of the duo of Yakubu and Mrs. Zakari, because we have always maintained that she has played less than dignified roles as INEC’s national commissioner in the last three years to such an extent that almost all of the elections conducted in the last three years in which she played pivotal supervisory roles have always ended up been manipulated in favour of the political platform of her uncle, the APC, which tendencies have whittled down the integrity and credibility of the electoral process in the country.”