Over 1,000 lawyers under the aegis of the Association of Legislative Drafting and Advocacy Practitioners (ALDRAP) have called disqualification of Joash Amupitan as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The lawyers who are also staff and consultants of the National Assembly warned that Amupitan’s involvement with the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last election creates room for bias and conflict of interest which in turn violates Section 5 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act and Section 19 of the ICPC Act.
In a letter addressed to the Senate President through the Committee on Electoral Matters, the group of lawyers said their goal is to promote professionalism in the enactment of the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
According to the group, this can only be achieved through public legal education programmes, and public interest litigation.
The lawyers said it further deemed it fit to notify the Nigerian Senate of President Bola Tinubu’s expected plan to seek the confirmation of Amupitan as the new INEC chairman.
According to the group, it is pertinent to note that Amupitan does not meet the qualifications required to assume the position of the chairman of the electoral empire in the first instance.
It called on the National Assembly to, as a matter of urgency, dispatch the president’s letter without taking the next step of referring the said letter to the Committee on Electoral Matters.
“The reason is because Prof. Joash Amupitan as a former Legal Counsel to the All Progressives Congress-APC at the 2023 Presidential Electoral Petition at the Supreme Court of Nigeria is automatically disqualified from holding the position of Chairman of INEC.
