The National Executive Committee(NEC) of Chartered Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria (CIOTA) has suspended the electoral process for 2022 general elections as announced by the 7 man Ad-Hoc electoral panel headed by Professor Innocent Ogwude.
Chairman and president of CIOTA, Dr Bashir Jamoh and the national secretary, Chinda Evans Ogbuji, jointly signed a resolution to this effect at an emergency meeting of NEC.
According to the resolution, this decision was taken in line with the provisions of paragraph 6, sub paragraph 3 of the first schedule of the Establishment Act of CIOTA signed into law in 2019 by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The chairman of the council said, the decision was to save the entire electoral process and reiterated its commitment to having a transparent and credible elections and hand over of power to the next administration.
‘We had to take this decision to save the entire electoral process. NEC have received several complaints about the process such as Ad-Hoc Electoral Committee levying interested members for expression of interest form without approval of NEC, non-publication of all vacant elective positions, restriction of collection and submission of nomination forms to just one week instead of the 5 weeks to election date as stipulated in the CIOTA Act, non-adherence to eligibility criteria as contained in the Institute’s Act, and lack of transparency and fairness in the entire process amongst other allegations,”Jamoh declared.
He posited that the institute shall not condone any act by anybody or group of persons to bring the Institute to disrepute, adding that, the electoral committee should not allow itself be coerced into taking actions that will set bad precedence that will injure the reputation of CIOTA.
The professor Innocent Ogwude-led electoral panel is saddled with the responsibility of conducting elections to fill executive positions at the annual general meeting(AGM) scheduled for the last week of November 2022.