The Senator representing Taraba Central Senatorial District, Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf, has berated the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for abandoning its constitutional responsibility in the conduct of the 2023 general elections.
Yusuf who spoke to journalists in Abuja on the outcome of the contentious polls lamented the way and manner the nation’s electoral umpire was managing the Electoral Act, which was passed by the National Assembly to improve on the existing defective electoral process…… CONTINUE READING
He accused the Commission of abandoning the powers conferred on it by the Electoral Act, saying that the body had, instead, shifted its powers to the courts by always urging aggrieved contestants and their supporters to go to court and seek redress.
“I don’t think they have been managing it as an institution; they have been managing it as individual idiosyncrasies. I’m not happy with that. I have said it not once that the power the law has given them, they do not want to execute it but want to push it to courts,” he said.
According to him, even when the law says they have seven days to review the election, but they said if the review is, they say that they are not going to implement what they reviewed and that people should go to court.
“I don’t think that is right; it is very wrong. They are the ones creating a lot of problems for people in this country. If the IREV figures and the BVAS figures are inconsistent, they should take a bold decision and say look, from the law that established us, this cannot be done. Therefore, let the others go to court.
“INEC is not doing what is supposed to be done. Some of us are not happy about it. I said it once, I said it twice and I will continue to say it. It is INEC that is making the electoral process more challenging because of the personal interests of members and staff of INEC.
According to him, in Taraba, his home State, the electoral umpire has done a lot of “messing up”, which they have clearly seen, adding that “where primaries are not held, they said, they were held. We have gone to court for eight months, from High Court to Appeal Court and Supreme Court. The courts have said what they did was not right.
The Taraba lawmaker suggested that the incoming 10th National Assembly should look at the 2022 Electoral Act to amend it, though he was of the view that the problem of the country was not with the laws, but with those saddled with the implementation.
Meanwhile, in this area of dwindling government revenues, Senator Yusuf, a renowned banker said over N6 trillion ground rent was being owed the Federal Government.
He stated this through a motion at Senate plenary on Wednesday, which has made the Upper Chamber set up a powerful Ad-hoc committee to probe the matter.
According to him, the government is looking for money and if government agencies saddled with revenue generation “sit down and they are not doing what they are supposed to do, it is a good reason to do a thorough investigation to see what money the government has lost over time and see how they will recover it”.
He urged the executive arm of government to do its bit when the report of the investigation eventually gets to them so that it will not go in the way of previous efforts of the legislature that never see the light of day…… CONTINUE READING
