The federal government has clarified that while it is not in the plans of President Goodluck Jonathan to illegally remove Prof. Attahiru Jega as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, “nothing would debar the INEC boss from proceeding on retirement when the need arises, in line with the civil service rule and as enshrined in the constitution.”
Supervising Minister of Information who is the substantive Minister of Culture and Tourism, Chief Edem Duke, made this clarification yesterday during his maiden meeting with information correspondents at Radio House, Abuja.
According to him, “I align myself with Mr. President that he has no plan to sack the INEC chairman. President Jonathan reaffirmed the confidence reposed on the INEC chairman and reiterated that the administration has no plan whatsoever to send the electoral umpire illegally packing. But this is not to say that, if it is time for INEC chairman to naturally exit his office, then the natural course of public service rule will not take place when he has reached age of retirement or exhausted his tenure.”
Duke went on to urge journalists to beware of rumour mongers and ensure that they sieve the truth from propaganda which has become the order of the day in the country as a result of the ongoing electioneering campaigns.
He said, “With the elections around the corner, it is important for every one of us to apply some sense of decorum, sense of patriotism and sense of judgmental guide in a manner that whatever we do, especially at this critical time of our nation’s development, we must be guided strictly by spirit of professionalism and love of our country.
“Those who are competing for offices in the course of these elections are the ones feeding social media with propaganda because they have no records to back their aspiration; they had spent a lot of resources, time and ingenuity building social media propaganda so that by the time campaign commenced, they were ready with propaganda against government in power.
“They embark on massive publicity campaign, recruit electoral PR companies to sell products that do not exist and these are thrown to the public during election. But we must realise that truth struck a thousand times will always rise again because the eternal age of time belongs to truth.
“You can’t use social media to say 14 new universities were not build, import bill has not dropped with marshal plan for agricultural revolution. You cannot use the social media to blindfold Nigerians that government has not build over 125 Almajiri schools or that 22 airports were not remodeled or five new international airports are not being built.
”You can’t say Nigeria is not the biggest economy in Africa and that inflation is not at single digit with a growth rate that has positioned Nigeria as one of the six fastest growing economies in the world,” the Minister posited. On Feb 28, 2015 7:36 AM, “Sylvester Ugwuanyi” <sylvester.ugwuanyi@dailypost.ng> wrote:
The federal government has clarified that while it is not in the plans of President Goodluck Jonathan to illegally remove Prof. Attahiru Jega as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, “nothing would debar the INEC boss from proceeding on retirement when the need arises, in line with the civil service rule and as enshrined in the constitution.”
Supervising Minister of Information who is the substantive Minister of Culture and Tourism, Chief Edem Duke, made this clarification yesterday during his maiden meeting with information correspondents at Radio House, Abuja.
According to him, “I align myself with Mr. President that he has no plan to sack the INEC chairman. President Jonathan reaffirmed the confidence reposed on the INEC chairman and reiterated that the administration has no plan whatsoever to send the electoral umpire illegally packing. But this is not to say that, if it is time for INEC chairman to naturally exit his office, then the natural course of public service rule will not take place when he has reached age of retirement or exhausted his tenure.”
Duke went on to urged journalists to beware of rumour mongers and ensure that that they sieve truth from propaganda which has become the order of the day in the country as a result of the ongoing electioneering campaigns.
He said, “With the elections around the corner, it is important for every one of us to apply some sense of decorum, sense of patriotism and sense of judgmental guide in a manner that whatever we do, especially at this critical time of our nation’s development, we must be guided strictly by spirit of professionalism and love of our country.
“Those who are competing for offices in the course of these elections are the ones feeding social media with propaganda because they have no records to back their aspiration; they had spent a lot of resources, time and ingenuity building social media propaganda so that by the time campaign commenced, they were ready with propaganda against government in power.
“They embark on massive publicity campaign, recruit electoral PR companies to sell products that do not exist and these are thrown to the public during election. But we must realise that truth struck a thousand times will always rise again because the eternal age of time belongs to truth.
“You can’t use social media to say 14 new universities were not build, import bill has not dropped with marshal plan for agricultural revolution. You cannot use the social media to blindfold Nigerians that government has not build over 125 Almajiri schools or that 22 airports were not remodeled or five new international airports are not being built.
You can’t say Nigeria is not the biggest economy in Africa and that inflation is not at single digit with a growth rate that has positioned Nigeria as one of the six fastest growing economies in the world,” the Minister posited.
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