A lawyer, Mathias Emeribe, has urged authorities in Nigeria to always carry out to the letter, every recommendation of how things should be done, as contained in the law. 

This was his opinion about the recent controversy trailing the appointment of an Acting Chairman for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the process of replacing the outgoing National Commissioners.

Mr Emeribe, on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, shared his legal interpretation of the perspective that Commissioners have to form a quorum before any valid decision can be made.

“The constitution made provision for 12 National Electoral Commissioners. If you put that as against the Chairman which makes it 13… What it means therefore is that if you must form a quorum, by virtue of Section 157 you need four plus (so to speak) because you need one-third of that number (13).

“The implication, therefore, is that if you are unable to reach or make up that number, whatever decision that you pass is of no moment.

“If an election is coming up – for instance, the Bayelsa and Kogi election, the question that would be asked is ‘who are those who will form the quorum to take decisions as to that particular election’, that is number one.

“Now the question as to the leadership of INEC is also very fundamental here. The question that will be asked here is that the woman – with all due respect, the current Acting Chairman – was she legally appointed to be in that position?

“That question requires a legal answer for anything proper to be done,” he explained.

The Acting Chairman of INEC, Amina Zakari, in an interview with Channels Television’s correspondent, Gbenga Ashiru, had commented on the controversy surrounding her appointment.

She made reference to instances when an Acting Chairman was also appointed by former President, Goodluck Jonathan; a view Mr Emeribe disagreed with.

“The law under which Soyebi was appointed is different from the law that we are operating today. If you go to the provision of the 1999 Constitution as amended, the first alteration was signed into law in 2011 to take effect from July 2010.

“The former INEC Chairman was appointed in June 2010. Therefore, the law under which they operated then was the natural law as the 1999 Constitution had it.

“Under that 1999 Constitution, the power to appoint vests purely with the President – in terms of approving, appointing and then the confirmation. Consequently, he has what you may call an implied power, if it does happen that there’s a vacuum, to appoint an acting chairman.

“So there was a law that tends to support his position then. But the first alteration that was made under Section 160 was that “that natural state which requires just simply the President no longer subsists,” the lawyer further explained.

He also backed his explanation, reading from the Nigerian Constitution and warning that this could get more complicated, especially with the elections in Bayelsa and Kogi States approaching.

He, however, added that the situation could be corrected before the elections.

“It still falls within the purview of the powers vested in the President to do so, particularly with the Vice President, who I know is an authority when it comes to law,” he said.