Nigeria’s election regulator, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it did not appoint a partisan person as head of its ICT department.
INEC disclosed this in a statement late Monday night, in a response to an allegation made by Chief Olabode George.
The Commission insists their staff are “career officers and have never held any political appointments”.
Further from the truth: INEC said the reports that it appointed an associate of a politician to head its ICT department is not true, they said:
- ” The attention of the Commission has been drawn to a widely publicized report attributed to a well-known Lagos Political, Chief Olabode George, that the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) has appointed on Femi Odubiyi, a former Commissioner in Lagos State and an associate of a prominent politician, as it Head of ICT.
- ” Nothing can be further from the truth”
Partisan Politics: INEC added that their staff is not career politicians, saying the Odubiyi does not exist, they said:
- ” To set 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”
- “Our ICT staff are career officers of the Commission. None has held any political appointment in any State of the Federation”
- They urged the public to disregard the story, urging that ” its promoter” should have been circumspect so as not to be seen as a purveyor of fake news.
What you should know
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said last week that the transfer of its former Director of ICT has nothing to do with the glitches experienced with the uploading of election results to the IReV portal on February 25.
The Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, stated in response to insinuations that the transfer of INEC’s former Director of ICT, Chidi Nwafor, caused the glitches experienced with the INEC Result Viewing Portal in the Feb. 25 presidential election.
Oyekanmi said such insinuation was nothing but an attempt to mislead the public, adding that the glitches could still have occurred even if the former ICT Director was still in charge.
- “Recently, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter had serious glitches that prevented many people, including me, from using those applications for many hours. But eventually, the respective companies surmounted the challenges.
- “Now, would you say that the glitches occurred just because one Engineer resigned from or was transferred within the company? Of course not,” he added.
