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POLLS SHIFT: ‘Incompetent’ Prof Ibeanu is related to Peter Obi, he must be removed now- BMO

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POLLS SHIFT: 'Incompetent' Prof Ibeanu is related to Peter Obi, he must be removed now- BMO

The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to relieve the head of its logistics team, Prof Okechukwu Ibeanu, of his duty.

The group said Ibeanu was responsible for the logistics issues encountered by the commission in delivering the presidential and National Assembly elections last weekend, firing the commission to postpone the election till February 23.

The group said since Ibeanu had failed, being a subset of INEC, then INEC had failed as an independent body.

A statement signed by the organisation’s chairman, Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary, Cassidy Madeley on Monday expressed doubts as to the preparedness of INEC in delivering a hitch-free elections as long as Ibeanu remains head of logistics, hence the need for his replacement.

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It said, “Nigerians and the international community are all witnesses to the shoddy logistics arrangement for an election that INEC had all of four years to plan for.

“The 2019 election is not Nigeria’s first so there is no basis for the Commission to subject the country to such an embarrassing situation after it had continually maintained that it was ready to do better than that of 2015.

“But after getting all the funding it asked for, INEC surprisingly handed over one of the most important jobs in the electoral process to an individual that has barely spent eighteen months in the Commission and who is not known to have any prior working knowledge of the process.

“It is clear that the job of manning election logistics is not one that ought to have been given to a neophyte national commissioner and there is no way that Ibeanu could do better than he did on February 16 going forward.

“So there is no way his retention as the head of Electoral Operations and Logistics would be acceptable to Nigerians”

BMO also raised fears in the rumoured relationship between Ibeanu and a former chairman of INEC, Prof Maurice Iwu who, according to the group, is now a technical consultant to the opposition presidential candidate.

The statement also alleged that Ibeanu had a family tie with the Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP ), Peter Obi.

“PDP leaders have not and cannot deny that the man who left the country a legacy of its worst election in recent history had been playing a major role for them in the run up to the Presidential election and here we have someone he is close to manning a sensitive position at INEC

“Aside from Iwu, there are suggestions that Professor Ibeanu who is representing Anambra state in the commission is related to the Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party Peter Obi.

“This is certainly not acceptable to us at BMO and we believe the only way INEC chairman Mahmud Yakubu could extricate himself from allegations of collusion with the opposition is for him to immediately remove Ibeanu from the role he handed him after succumbing to PDP’s serial blackmail”.

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