During his address at the recent
51st National Executive Committee
(NEC) of the Peoples Democratic
Party, President Goodluck Jonathan
took time off to address
accusations that he has nominated
partisan politicians from the PDP as
members of the Independent
National Electoral Commission.
According to recent press reports,
nominees for INEC
commissionership with partisan
backgrounds include Ambassador
Z. Anka, who contested the
governorship of Zamfara State on
the platform of the PDP in 1999;
Gen. Abdullahi Bagudu Mamman,
who is said to be a member of the
Board of Trustees of the PDP and
Alhaji Yakubu Shehu who
contested the Senatorial elections
in 2003 and 2007 on the platform
of the PDP in Kaduna State.
The president agreed with his
critics that the affected nominees
should be de-nominated. He went
on to confirm that the nominees
will be removed from the list to be
sent to the Senate for
confirmation. But the president
was not done yet. Maybe in an
attempt to re-ignite the paradox
of the “rule of law” mouthed by
the Yar Adua regime that did
everything but obey the law, the
president went on to defend his
initial choice of the affected
candidates in the following words:
"I am not saying that he is going
to rig election for PDP. In fact, the
law emphasizes that to be in INEC
you must qualify to contest
election into the House of
Representatives. For you to
contest election into the House of
Representatives, you must be a
member of a political party. So if
you follow the law to the letter
you can appoint people in political
parties to be in INEC,"
I am not quite sure what portion of
the 1999 Constitution the president
was quoting in support of his
argument that whoever is
qualified to contest for the House
of Representatives is also qualified
to be an INEC commissioner or
chairman. The applicable legal
provision is found in s.14 of the
Third Schedule to the 1999
constitution. Under s.14 an INEC
commissioner must be at least 40
years old and the chairman at
least 50 years old. The age
requirement is in addition to the
"good character" requirement.
However, the age requirement for
contesting an election into the
House of Representatives is
currently 30 years. So where then
did the president find the
constitutional backing for his
argument that whoever is
qualified to run for elections into
the house of representatives is
also qualified for appointment into
INEC?
Remember when the government
asked Solomon Soyebi to take
over the position of the acting
chairman of INEC from Phillip
Umeadi who had manipulated his
way into the position of INEC ’s
acting chairman after Maurice Iwu
was sacked? The argument then
was that Solomon Soyebi was the
only surviving INEC commissioner
to have attained the age of 50
years? Few weeks later, the
same president is now impliedly
telling Nigerians that the age
requirement for INEC
commissionership or chairmanship
is 30 years, the same as the House
of Representatives. Maybe the
president was given the wrong
briefing notes which led him to
confuse the proposed 40-year age
limit for elections into the House of
Representatives with the actual or
current 30 years age requirement.
But that does not resolve the issue
of what appears to be an
emerging pattern of double
standard.
Few days ago, the president was
criticized by retired Justice Uwais
over his decision to appoint a new
INEC chairman, and commissioners
despite the recommendation by a
panel headed by the later that
such appointments should be
made by the Judicial Council. The
president ’s response was that the
recommendations contained in the
Uwais Report do not have the
force of law until they are enacted
into law. Legally speaking, the
president's legal advisers got it
spot on on the pre-enactment
legal effect of Justice Uwai's'
recommendations but the advisers
got it spot off on the age
requirement for INEC chairmanship.
What is good for the goose should
be good for the gander and the
legal effect or lack thereof of
recommendations that are yet to
be enacted into law should also
hold with respect to the minimum
age for contesting an election into
the House of Repreasentatives.
The proposed 40 years age limit
for election into the House of
Representatives does not have the
force of law until the Constitution is
amended. Therefore, the current
age limit for appointment into INEC
chairmanship or commissionership
is not the same as that for
contesting an election into the
House of Representatives. There
are other aspects of the president ’s
speech that would have
discomforted some of his listeners,
especially his comments about the
fitness of partisan politicians to be
election umpires but that is an
issue for another day.

You are right

@rhymz
Please modify your post and make it more readable.