Civil Societies Call For Removal Imo REC, Others Ahead Of November Governorship Poll

Prof. Sylvia Agu, Imo REC

 Prominent civil society groups, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) and the South-East chapter of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) have called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), for the immediate transfer of the Imo State Resident Electoral Commissioner Prof Sylvia Agu and 17 other top Electoral Officers to engender confidence in the November 11 governorship election in the state.

The civil society organisations also called for the demilitarisation of the state ahead of the election.

The groups alleged the REC did not stand tall to be counted and respected owing to her poor handling of the earlier 2023 polls and, therefore, could not be trusted to organise and deliver a free and credible governorship election.

In separate letters to INEC boss signed by the Chairman Intersociety, Mr. Emeka Umeagbalasi and South East zone chairman of CLO, Mr. Aloysius Attah, they urged the Commission to comprehensively overhaul the Imo INEC and its principal departments including EOs, Administration, Operations, ICT, Voter Education, etc and address the anomalies arising from the 2023 Presidential/National/State Assembly polls in the state.

The groups alleged that several INEC officers were accused of playing different indictable roles to undermine the credibility of the polls, to the extent that the state Assembly poll in the state was the worst of it all and a ‘walkover’ for candidates of the ruling APC by “winning” 26 of the State’s 27 House of Assembly seats.

The Intersociety and CLO also added that “having comprehensively checked and monitored the goings on in Imo State ahead of the November 11 governorship poll, it had found that REC Sylvia Agu and 17 other top electoral officers including 11 EOs and six departmental heads drawn from the state INEC secretariat are grossly incapable of ensuring free, participatory and credible governorship poll in the state” and that the INEC national headquarters must address all the wrongs arising from the 2023 armada of electoral fraud and clean up and reposition the state’s INEC ahead of the November 11, 2023 governorship poll.”

According to the statement, “the Headquarters of the Commission must also be told in clear terms that some, if not many of the Electoral Officers in Imo State’s 27 Local Government Areas have long overstayed far above periods allowed by the INEC Establishment Act of 2004 or the Electoral Act of 2022 as amended which has also made them vulnerable to electoral corruption and related sharp practices."

Intersociety and CLO strongly warned against using soldiers and other security agents whether drafted or attached to the incumbents at the State and Local Government levels and armed others to prevent and deny the opposition party agents, observers, and relevant stakeholders access to monitor the result collations in line with the Electoral Act and Election Guidelines/Manuals issued for 2023 Polls.