Today, I addressed some members of the media and the Senate Press Corps on my views about the President’s nomination of Professor Joash Amupitan, SAN, as INEC Chairman. Everyone knows that the President has forwarded the name to the Senate, which has been read and referred accordingly, after approval by the National Council of State.
My views about the impartiality of INEC officials are well known, and that is the way it should be. I have listened to a number of commentators and made some inquiries, and I told journalists that, on the basis of the available evidence and facts, I will be voting to confirm or support the nomination of Professor Amupitan.
As a member of the Committee on Electoral Matters, I am aware of the controversies about his alleged membership of the President’s legal team in the last election petitions. I have made a lot of inquiries, and I have been told that the nominee was not a member of the President’s legal team, and that the name is being confused with another professor — Professor Osipitan — also a Professor of Law, but in Unilag, not the nominee, who is a Professor of Law in UNIJOS, although the names appear similar.
While requiring impartiality of nominees, as we have established, in the case of professionals, we should look beyond evidence of professional engagement or involvement and probe to discover partisan or political involvement. As lawyers, by their own professional calling and ethos, they are duty-bound to accept briefs from persons and parties who retain their services and are not tied to any particular politician or political party.
But in this case, what has been shown so far establishes that he wasn’t a member of the President’s legal team. Even if it were so, I would still have required further evidence of political or partisan involvement, in a political sense, not professionally. We can’t confine professionals like lawyers and doctors from attending to any set of politicians or political parties.
Furthermore, I consider refreshing the nomination of a Professor of Law of his standing, who is also, for the first time, a Senior Advocate appointed into this office at this critical period. While being a professor is evidence of scholarship, but may not be enough to speak for integrity, I believe that the additional consideration of being a Senior Advocate — the first in our history — speaks a lot. It gives an opportunity for the nominee, when confirmed, to be alive to the demands and to be alive to his place in history. And I believe he should be conscious of the judgment of men and God, and also of posterity.
