Posted by By FRANCIS AWOWOLE-BROWNE, Abuja on
From the presidential candidate of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, came a hard knock for the Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission(INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu, who warned the electoral body chief to stop justifying his inability to conduct a free and fair election by constantly referring to his defeat at the polls.
From the presidential candidate of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, came a hard knock for the Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission(INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu, who warned the electoral body chief to stop justifying his inability to conduct a free and fair election by constantly referring to his defeat at the polls.
In the same vein, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has said that the INEC chairman is yet to purge himself of his misdeeds at the last elections and therefore should not be allowed to conduct the coming by-elections in the country.
Alhaji Bafarawa, still bitter at election petition tribunal's decision to uphold the victory of the Peoples Democratic Party in Sokoto State gubernatorial election alleged that the INEC boss was making use of his electoral failure to score points at an international forum in United Kingdom.
He therefore warned Iwu to desist forthwith from making reference to either the party or its presidential candidate, in justifying the April 2007 charade he presided over in the name of elections.
Alhaji Bafarawa, in a statement signed by the National Publicity Director of the DPP, Ismail Sanni, accused Professor Iwu of ridiculing him in the UK while presenting the controversial 2007 election report to an international audience.
The former Sokoto State governor had quoted the INEC Chairman in Westminster at the presentation of his commission's election report to Nigerians resident in the UK and the international press as saying 'owing to the dominance of Bafarawa in the politics of his state, Sokoto, it would have been unthinkable that a party like PDP would have edged him out."
Condemning Iwu's utterances, Bafarawa asked him to either go seek for forgiveness for the sins he committed against Nigeria and Nigerians or simply shut his mouth if he has nothing to say rather than maligning him.
In the statement, the pivot of DPP described Professor Iwu as a willing tool deployed by the Obasanjo led PDP government to deny most Nigerians from electing their true representatives.
'It is saddening and unfortunate to hear that a man who calls himself a professor would go outside the shores of this country to proclaim an election that was adjudged by the international community as having fallen below standard as credible. An election that has so far been nullified at various levels by the judiciary", the DPP noted
While admitting that it is truly unthinkable that the DPP could lose Sokoto, the party stressed that 'that goes to show that the election purportedly held there was not free and fair".
The DPP and its leader therefore reiterated their call for the removal of the INEC chairman before the commencement of the proposed by-elections across the country.
Meanwhile, the NLC President Mr. Ibrahim Omar has described Professor Iwu as a danger to the nation's nascent democracy, saying the earlier he is removed the better for our democracy.
His call came in the wake of reported demands for money by the INEC for the conduct of the by-elections next year.
Omar argued that the spate of nullification of election was an indication of a failed electoral body, and should therefore not be entrusted with the conduct of more elections as they would end up being flawed as others before them.
To this end, the NLC President argued that money should not be appropriated to the INEC under Iwu as doing so would mean putting a 'cat in charge of fresh fried meat, of course we all know what will be the outcome."