….Says Commission partisan, working for preconceived agenda
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has called for the immediate resignation or sack of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Amupitan, and all the National Commissioners of the commission.
The ADC National Chairman, Senator David Mark, at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, said the party passed a vote of no confidence in Prof. Amupitan and his management team, because “We are convinced that they are incapable of conducting any credible election.”
Mark’s press conference was in reaction to the commission’s delisting him and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola as National Chairman and Secretary of the ADC.
The commission, in a statement issued on Wednesday by National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education Committee Mohammed Kudu Haruna, said it would maintain the status quo ante bellum as at September 2, 2025, when Gombe filed his case.
However, Mark at the press conference which was attended by leaders of the party, including former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, and his New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, among others, accused INEC of partisanship in its leadership crisis and said working towards a preconceived agenda.
He stated that the commission erred by purporting to recognise Nafiu Bala Gombe, who he said has resigned as an officer of the party, as a faction of ADC.
“Let me reiterate for the record: there are no competing claims on the leadership of the ADC. Nafiu Bala has no locus whatsoever,” Mark stated, adding that INEC should have waited for the Court of Appeal to decide this matter.
The National Chairman accused the commission of doing the bidding of the ruling party.
Mark reminded INEC that his over political parties are not administrative or managerial, but simply supervisory.
He added that with its action, INEC has left no one in doubt that it has chosen the path of dishonour and has become complicit in undermining Nigeria’s democracy.
“It therefore can no longer be trusted. There is only one conclusion that Nigerians can draw from the April 1st action taken by INEC: the electoral umpire has taken sides. It can no longer be trusted.
“As a matter of fact, INEC has acted in contempt of the Court of Appeal and has therefore acted unlawfully,” he added.
He argued that INEC cannot choose to fix the status quo from the day it took the administrative action to upload the names of the new ADC officials on its website, because the commission does not have the power to determine for any political party who its leaders should be.
According to him, the decision was taken on July 29, not on September 9, adding that with its press release on Wednesday, “INEC has invented a status quo that never existed, because there was no time that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) did not have a duly constituted leadership.
“What INEC has done is to create a situation that, by its own curious logic, leaves the ADC without leadership.
“This certainly cannot be the status quo that the Court of Appeal directed should be preserved. It is an INEC invention that is not known to any Nigerian law.”
He called on Nigerians to defend the nation’s democracy and resist any attempt to impose a one-party state on Nigeria.
