POLITICS: INEC Boss Must Go. South,Middle Belt Leaders Insists.

The call for the removal of the chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC Professor Mahmood Yakubu, appears to be taking top gear as regional opinion leaders push the motion harder.In less than twenty-four hours, Southern and Middle Belt Leaders’ Forum will meet to discuss critical national issues with one leading to the demand for the ouster of the man in the hem of electoral conduct in Nigeria.

This statement was made by Mr. Yinka Odumakin, Secretary to both Southern and Middle Belt Leaders’ Forum during an interview with newsmen; adding that the forum will also be discussing issues of security of life and property.

SMBLF said, “The meeting is a continuation of our normal consultations on the issue of restructuring to have a just and fair Nigeria.  Those issues continue to dominate our agenda. We have put our demand for removal of the INEC Chairman and the service chiefs as a cardinal issue. We are not going to back down on them. We would continue to press on them.  They would form part of the issues for discussion on Friday.”

On security of citizens in the country, Odumakin revealed that the nation’s security architecture is faulty.

“The impediments (to the 2019 elections) are so many. The major impediment is the security architecture in the country, the way the President has organised the security architecture, having 15 out of 17 service chiefs from his region.

“The tenure of the service chiefs has expired, but he kept them. This is geared towards the 2019 elections. Again, the composition of INEC does not give us confidence about the elections.

“The former acting Chairman of INEC, Amina Zakari, appointed by President Buhari happened to be his relation. Our information indicated that Zakari is more powerful than the INEC chairman. The nepotism that had crept into INEC does not give us confidence that there would be free and fair elections,” the forum insisted.

“We also learnt a lot of foreigners had been brought in from Niger Republic to register so that they can vote in 2019 and INEC has not responded to this.

“Underage voters were registered in Kano and they voted and INEC set up a committee to look into it, but up till now, it has refused to release the report, why? These are some of our fears for the election in 2019 and if they are not addressed, it is going be so turbulent,” it noted.