BREAKING: Senator Obiorah Proposes Bill to Strip President Tinubu of Powers to Appoint INEC Chair

Senator Ikechukwu Obiorah has proposed a bill to strip President Tinubu and State Governors of power to appoint INEC and SIECs.

NewsOnline Nigeria reports that Former Senator and lawyer, Ikechukwu Obiorah, has submitted a draft bill to the National Assembly seeking a constitutional amendment that would remove the powers of the President and Governors to appoint members of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs).

The proposal, contained in his treatise titled “The Philosophy of Elections and Nigeria’s Fake Democracy”, was made available to journalists in Abuja on Sunday.

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Obiorah, who represented Anambra South Senatorial District from 2007 to 2011, argued that entrusting political leaders with the power to appoint electoral umpires has entrenched election rigging, subverted democracy, and contributed to Nigeria’s poverty and underdevelopment.

“Since Independence, 90 percent of all elections—Parliamentary, Presidential, National Assembly, Governorship, House of Assembly, and Local Government—have been brazenly stolen, rigged, perverted, or nullified,” Obiorah lamented.

He likened the current arrangement to “a man being a judge in his own case,” stressing that it enables political leaders to manipulate electoral outcomes in their favor.

Under his proposal, INEC would be restructured into a 13-member commission: six commissioners elected by Nigerian labour and professional organisations, six nominated by the United Nations, and one observer nominated by Transparency International. The commission would then elect its chairman internally, with full powers to hire and fire staff, and oversee all elections at the federal, state, and local government levels.

Obiorah dismissed concerns that UN and Transparency International involvement would infringe on Nigeria’s sovereignty, insisting it would reflect the country’s commitment to transparency and credible elections.

He also called for mandatory use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) and the electronic transmission of results via the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV), while emphasizing that technology alone cannot guarantee credible polls without a truly neutral electoral body.

The former Senator maintained that credible elections are the foundation of genuine democracy and development, stressing that his proposal could help pull Nigeria out of mass poverty.

The draft bill has now been laid before the National Assembly for consideration.