There is an ongoing controversy over the allegation that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has appointed a partisan politician to head its ICT department in Lagos ahead of the governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections on Saturday.
Chief Olabode George, a former deputy national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, had on Monday insisted that INEC boss, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, must remove the Commission’s Director of ICT, Mr. Femi Odubiyi, stating that he is a member of the APC.
George said that INEC must explain to Nigerians how Odubiyi, a former commissioner for Science and Technology in Lagos State, became the Head of its ICT in the state.
But INEC in a statement signed by Festus Okoye, National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee, said Bode George’s claim was false.
“To set the record straight, the name ‘Femi Odubiyi’ does not even exist within our ICT Department at the INEC headquarters in Abuja or any State office of the Commission,” the Commission said.
Okoye explained that INEC’s ICT staff were career officers and had never held any political appointment in any State.
He said the report must be disregarded by the general public.