- Safiu Kehinde
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) is set to stage a nationwide protest in demand for the removal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan.
This was announced in a statement issued on Sunday by the factional National Youth Leader of the party, Balarabe Rufai.
The ADC leader declared that the protesters will be occupying all INEC offices across the country following the expiration of the ultimatum issued to the commission to respond to the alleged partisanship of Amupitan.
“We will be occupying all INEC offices tomorrow, Monday, in the following states due to the expiration of the ultimatum and since Independent National Electoral Commission has failed to respond.” Rufai wrote.
Meanwhile, the protest is slated to kick-off in 11 states which include Kano, Lagos, Enugu, Imo, Osun, Adamawa, and Rivers states.
Others include Bauchi, Niger, Nasarawa, and Jigawa states.
The factional ADC Youth Leader announced that other states will join the protest after the first phase involving the 11 states listed in the statement.
The nationwide protest is coming under the heels of speculations and claims of Amupitan’s affiliation with the All Progressives Congress (APC).
This would be intensified during the weekend with the discovery of an X account allegedly used by the INEC Chairman and containing old posts of him campaigning for the APC.
The account was alleged to have been creating using his email address with his name as initially used as the username of the account before it was changed.
This had brought Amupitan under the spotlight again at the weekend as calls for his removal intensified.
INEC would however deny the alleged ownership of the account by its chairman.