Just in: INEC removes Sokoto Resident Electoral Commissioner to avert preferred candidate’s shortcomings

…Four days to Saturday guber/state assembly polls

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• Pix(above): Prof Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has suspended the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Sokoto State, Dr. Nura Ali, with immediate effect, in what political pundits describe as INEC Chairman’s way of dealing with him as threatened recently during a meeting with RECs.

Recall that the INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, had recently, in a meeting with states’ RECs, vowed to deal with any official of the commission who contributed to the shortcomings of the presidential election.

Though no reason was given for Ali’s suspension, political analysts view it as the commission’s purported shortcoming in Sokoto State, where the PDP won the presidential election with 31% while the chairman’s preferred party, APC, polled 22% of the total valid votes cast.

The suspension which comes four days before the gubernatorial and state assembly elections was announced in a letter signed by INEC’s Secretary, Rose Orlaran-Anthony, on Monday, March 6, 2023, and addressed to both the Resident Electoral Commissioner and the Administrative Secretary in the state.

INEC further directed the Administrative Secretary in the state to take full charge with immediate effect.

According to the commission’s letter to the REC, he was warned to stay away from office immediately until further notice.

While the former Secretary to the State Government, Saidu Umar, is standing in for the PDP in the guber poll, former Deputy Governor, Ahmad Aliyu, stands in for the APC. Will it be another epoch-making contest between the two parties as in the last presidential poll? Will it not? Only time shall tell./SHARE THIS