The commission is equally agonising on how to deal with the troubling presence of other top officials and Electoral Officers, who colluded to rig the 2007 elections in some of the states of the federation, as exposed by the tribunals and the Court of Appeal.
SATURDAY PUNCH gathered that the INEC leadership was split on the Ondo REC as some officials of the commission insisted that her presence was giving it (INEC) an image problem.
Before her current posting, Adebayo had courted international controversy when she returned the recently ousted Segun Oni as the winner of the rerun governorship election of Ekiti State in April 2009 in spite of the massive fraud perpetrated in the election.
She had attracted the ire of Nigerians when she initially declined to declare the results of the election on the grounds that she would not do anything against her conscience. She also resigned her appointment, but later caved in to pressure to return the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Oni, as the winner of the election.
But since the October 15, 2010 judgement of the Court of Appeal, Ilorin, which nullified Oni’s election and returned Dr. Kayode Fayemi of the Action Congress of Nigeria as the winner of the election, and the indictment of Adebayo by the Justice Salami Adebayo-led court, there has been a renewed call for Adebayo’s removal.
However, the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and those entrusted with managing the media in the commission have not made a definite statement on the retention of Adebayo in the organisation in spite of the public outrage that has followed her.
It was gathered that Jega was in a fix as he lacked the powers to hire and fire a REC, who enjoys a fixed tenure as enshrined in the constitution.
SATURDAY PUNCH investigations showed that Adebayo and her discredited colleagues cut the image of sickness within the commission, a situation which Jega has to endure.
SATURDAY PUNCH gathered that the leadership of INEC would not want to be drawn into the growing clamour for the sacking of the septuagenarian REC, who many believe, can’t be trusted with conducting transparent elections in a volatile state like Ondo in 2011.
On Thursday, when our correspondent contacted the Chief Press Secretary to the chairman of INEC, Mr. Kayode Idowu, he refused bluntly to comment on Adebayo.
Idowu said, “As for the continuing stay of Adebayo in INEC, let me make it very clear to you that I have no comment on it. In fact, I refuse to speak on it.”
But the INEC approach and decision to ignore the Adebayo issue, has not doused the anger among the citizenry.
The National Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, said that Adebayo’s presence had cast a slur on the intent of President Goodluck Jonathan to conduct free, fair and credible elections.
The CNPP spokesman said that Adebayo remained a bold question mark on the seriousness of Mr. President‘s statement that he was committed to the project to give Nigerians credible elections in 2011.
He urged the President to go through the judgement of the Court of Appeal and use the indicting pronouncement of Justice Salami as a premise to instruct the Attorney-General of the Federation to prosecute Adebayo for gross misconduct.
He warned that the presence of people like Adebayo in strategic places in INEC was a threat to the realisation of the objective of achieving the feat of credible elections in 2011, as Jega alone would not be able to actualise it.
He said, “Her retention is a negation of President Jonathan’s statement on free and fair elections. It casts doubt on the serious pronouncement of Mr. President that he would encourage free and fair elections.
“I think he has the power to relieve her of her duties for gross misconduct. The court judgement implicated her. The President should go through (Justice Ayo) Salami’s judgement.
“It is a court pronouncement. Her retention casts a serious doubt over the seriousness of Mr. President’s avowed commitment to give Nigerians free and fair elections.
“Jega is not a sole administrator; he can’t know what is happening in Ondo while in his office in Abuja here. That, I think, is the reason something has to be done about Adebayo.”
Similarly, the immediate past president of the Nigeria Bar Association, Mr. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, said that Adebayo’s position as a REC was unacceptable.
He said Adebayo should be removed or should resign voluntarily from office after her ignoble role in the Ekiti rerun election.
He said, “My view is that the lady should have been removed by now. Her presence in the commission is a total disservice to the nation, especially with regards to the far-reaching findings by the Appeal Court.
“We expect the Federal Government to have done something and ask her to go. In fact, if she is somebody that has conscience, she should have resigned by now.”
Also, the Publicity Secretary of the Afenifere Renewal Group, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, said that Adebayo’s presence in INEC was an incontrovertible stain on the integrity of the electoral process.
He urged the President and the Federal Government to remove her from her crucial position if she failed to resign.
On their part, the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress, the two umbrella labour organisations in the country, expressed their resolve to carry out campaigns for Adebayo’s removal from office.
The NLC, in a communiqué issued at the end of its National Executive Committee meeting in Abuja on Wednesday, said that it would organise demonstrations to press for her removal as was the case with the former chairman of the commission, Prof. Maurice Iwu.
The communiqué, signed by the president and general-secretary of the congress, Messrs Abdulwahed Omar and John Odah, respectively, stated that Adebayo’s record in Ekiti had disqualified her from her current position.
In a telephone interview with our correspondent on Thursday, the president of the TUC, Mr. Peter Esele, said that Adebayo’s retention in INEC could not have happened in a civilised setting.
He said that the Federal Government, which appointed her, had a responsibility to move for her removal “because she is not worthy of that position.”
Jega said in an interview he granted a weekly magazine this week that he was prepared to use his powers as the INEC chairman to ensure that the integrity of the commission was enhanced.
He explained his constraints with respect to the emerging storm around Adebayo. According to him, he lacks the powers to hire or fire RECs.
However, he said that INEC might initiate a process for the removal of a REC. “But if we have concrete evidence of fraud or misconduct, which is a sufficient ground to initiate a process, we will do so,” Jega had told the magazine.
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