The immediate past Chairman of Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Dr. Tanko Yusuf, has bemoaned the current leadership of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the commission’s alleged overbearing influence on the affairs of the agency, which he described a serious aberration.
Yusuf, who made the remarks while reacting to leadership crisis rocking the agency, said it was emphatic that IPAC is an independent body, and so INEC has no power or role to play under its Code of Conduct.
The IPAC leader, who is also the National Chairman of National Conscience Party (NCP), therefore called on the acting Chairman of INEC, Mrs. Amina Zakari, to learn from her predecessor, Professor Attahiru Jega, and desist from meddling in the affairs of IPAC.
According to him, “During my time, every invitation of IPAC activities was directed by the IPAC council. We invited INEC to programmes here. With all due respect, that was where former INEC Chairman, Professor Jega, showed his level of seniority as a leader.”
He said the move by INEC to take over the administration of IPAC was wrong, adding: “You can ask anybody who knows. The document is very clear, you will read the document and you will see it in the Code of Conduct that IPAC is actually an independent body.
“We only partner with INEC, a strong partnership, just like the way we partner with UNDP who supplied us with all the donations.
“In fact anybody who would have even been in the strong ownership of the IPAC would have been the donor agencies who have been supporting our programmes. But you will see that they never did, they only partner with us as it were. This is the partnership we want. You can corroborate this particular position with UNDP or IRI who started it all.
“It is a serious aberration. So whoever doesn’t know it should look at the documents very clearly, and if you make a wrong position of subjugating to INEC, then you will never be independent, you can never see anything that you feel is dangerous to your own survival as a group.”
Yusuf said as far as the business of IPAC was concerned, the authentic Chairman was Chief Peter Ojonugwa Ameh.
He said: “As far as the IPAC is concerned, I tried not to be publicly involved. I have handed over to Chief Peter Ameh, and rightfully. So based on the way the election went, unfortunately people have not been able to really understand the way it is going. I love peace, and I have made a lot of efforts about peaceful reconciliation and even when I gave my suggestions as regard to meetings being called for reconciliation, only Chief Peter Ameh came at that time for a peaceful reconciliation.”
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