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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has denied appointing a former Commissioner in Lagos State, Femi Odubiyi, as its head of Information and Communications Technology department.
Recall that a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George, had alleged that the former commissioner was INEC’s ICT head.
In a statement on Sunday, the former PDP deputy national chairman said the INEC chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, must remove Odubiyi as the commission’s ICT head because of his closeness to the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
He said the first thing Yakubu must do was to explain to Nigerians how the former Commissioner for Science and Technology in Lagos State allegedly found his way into INEC as head of ICT, “a critical department before, during and after elections.”
Dismissing the claim in a statement late Tuesday, INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, said the widely publicised report attributed to Bode George was a false claim.
“Nothing can be farther from the truth.To set the record straight, the name “Femi Odubiyi“ does not even exist within our ICT Department at the INEC headquarters in Abuja or any state office of the commission,” he said.
INEC said its ICT staff were career officers, adding that “none has held any political appointment in any state of the federation.”
“The public is urged to disregard the story. The promoter should have been circumspect so as not to be seen as a purveyor of fake news,” Okoye added.