‘Don’t act as if everyone is stupid,’ lawyer blasts Akpabio over Akwa Ibom nominee

Human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, has blasted the Senate President Godswill Akpabio over the nomination of a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Etekamba Umoren, for the position of the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Akwa Ibom State.

President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of Mr Umoren is illegal, going by the third schedule to the 1999 Constitution of Nigerian which clearly prohibits the appointment of partisan persons into the electoral commission.

Despite being a violation of the constitution and the outrage that followed Mr Umoren’s nomination, Mr Akpabio-led Senate went ahead to hurriedly confirm it and that of three others also linked to the president’s party, the APC.

Mr Umoren, who is from the same Essien Udim Local Government Area with Mr Akpabio, was the permanent secretary in the Akwa Ibom Government House when Mr Akpabio was the governor of Akwa Ibom. Through Mr Akpabio’s influence, Mr Umoren was later appointed the secretary to the Akwa Ibom State Government by Mr Akpabio’s successor, Udom Emmanuel.

Mr Emmanuel sacked Mr Umoren in January 2018, following his (Emmanuel) rift with Mr Akpabio, and when Mr Akpabio became the minister of Niger Delta Affairs in 2019, he appointed Mr Umoren as his chief of staff.

‘It’s a shame’

The rights lawyer, Mr Effiong, said on Wednesday in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) that Mr Umoren’s nomination is a “continuous destruction of our country and the undermining of democratic institutions by politicians”.

Mr Effiong is from Akwa Ibom but he is based in Lagos.

“This has always been one of my issues with Senator Godswill Akpabio. You don’t act as if everyone else is stupid,” he said in the post on the microblogging platform.

“Etekamba Umoren has a known political affiliation.

“Is there no neutral and credible person from Akwa Ibom that could have been appointed into INEC?”

Mr Effiong said it is a shame that some people could support Mr Umoren’s nomination as INEC REC.

“The current leadership and composition of INEC is one that does not inspire confidence in the electoral process. But President Tinubu and Senator Akpabio think that the best way to restore the confidence is to appoint card carrying members of the APC into INEC.

“Is this how we want to build our country?” the lawyer said.

PDP rejects Umoren

Meanwhile, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has rejected Mr Umoren’s nomination as REC.

“Our Party is aware of the mission allegedly handed to Etekamba Umoren by the APC leadership to use the office of the REC to compromise sensitive processes, materials and systems including voter registration, collection of Voter Cards, doctoring of Voter Register, delineation of electoral constituencies and coercion of INEC staff, all to lay the foundation for APC to manipulate the process leading to future elections in Akwa Ibom State,” the PDP national spokesperson, Debo Ologunagba, said on Thursday at a press briefing in Abuja.

“The PDP therefore in clear and unequivocal terms rejects the imposition of Etekamba Umoren as INEC REC for Akwa Ibom State being conceived in iniquity and in flagrant violation of the express provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the Electoral Act, 2022 and the universal demand of impartiality and non-partisanship of an electoral body and its officials.”

PREMIUM TIMES reported the blunder of President Tinubu’s nomination of Mr Umoren as REC when the tenure of the current commissioner from the state Monday Udo-Tom has yet to expire.

The tenure of Mr Udo-Tom, an indigene of Akwa Ibom, and currently the Delta State REC, will expire in January.

Therefore, if Mr Umoren is sworn in as REC, having been cleared by the Senate, the oil rich state would have two of its indigenes in that position, a clear violation of the laws of the land.