We are worried about the fact that we see clearly that our government is bent on winning by all means

Archbishop Emeritus, Catholic Diocese of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, has said President Bola Tinubu is  desperate to win re-election at all cost.

Mr Onaiyekan made the statement on Friday in an interview with Arise TV days after a delegation of Catholic Bishops met with Mr Tinubu at Aso Rock.

“The position of Mr. President came very clearly in that statement that he made: ‘In politics, all is fair.’ Is that true? If that is what politics is—that in politics everything can be done provided you win elections. That is certainly not correct. There is propriety in everything. That is why we are worried about it,” Mr Onaiyekan said.

“We are worried about the fact that we see clearly that our government is bent on winning by all means, and unfortunately, they have a lot of means at their disposal to win. They are deploying all those means in a way that eventually, even if we had a free and fair election, the votes of the people may not count,” the bishop added.

Despite Mr Tinubu’s assurances that the Independent National Electoral Commission was neutral, Mr Onaiyekan said integrity of the electoral commission would be continue to be questioned as long as the presidency is in charge of appointing its chairman.

Joash Amupitan’s appointment as INEC chairman earlier this year sparked an uproar after a tweet that linked him to the ruling All Progressives Congress surfaced. 

“He said that INEC is independent, but words are not enough. The Nigerian political system, the way it is now constructed, precisely is leading to a situation where INEC cannot be independent. The chairman, all the members, and all the commissioners have been appointed by the President,” said Mr Onaiyekan.

He added, “The presumption is that Mr. President will appoint independent, impartial, wonderful people. But on the ground, we see that standard politicians and members of his party are appointed. This means we have a situation where until we find a system where the membership of the electoral commission is put together not by Mr President, but by a truly independent entity, that would remove the doubts.”