Senate fails to confirm Buhari’s aide for INEC job

The hope of President Muhammadu Buhari to have his Special Assistant on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie, to take up a new assignment as National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission has been dashed as the Senate has stepped down her confirmation.

The Senate in turning down the request asked the Presidency to replace Onochie.

Onochie’s fate is delaying the confirmation of three others on the list submitted to the Senate by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The other three nominees are Prof. Muhammad Sani Kallah (National, from Katsina State); Prof. Kunle Cornelius Ajayi (Ekiti) and Saidu Babura Ahmad (Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC (Jigawa).

Buhari, in the letter, had said, “Pursuant to Paragraph 14 of Part I (F) of the Third Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended, I hereby forward for confirmation by the Senate, the appointment of the following four Commissioners for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).”

The Senate committee screening the nominees stated that Onochie is “greatly partisan based on her conviction that All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Buhari are the best for Nigeria”.

Apart from the protest by the opposition, some APC senators also agreed that she is “positively partisan” in her devotion to work.