INEC wraps up CVR; Houses for judges rankles; Reward for rascals as ‘glitches’ visited NBA

There is no dull moment in Nigeria. There is always an interplay of the good, the bad, and the ugly. As you are aware, the ongoing continuous voter registration (CVR) will end on July 26, 2026.

Nigerians are not comfortable with the rash of Greek gifts going on, which may have blinded some eyes.

Some appointments by the government seem to be off the mark. Observers are watching.

The presidential election of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has come and gone like a musical note, but the melody lingers. It left more questions than answers.

As INEC’s continuous Voter Registration ends…

The third phase of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) will end on Sunday, July 26, 2026.

In a statement released on July 7, 2026, extending the exercise, the Commission stated: “As Nigerians are aware, the nationwide CVR exercise commenced on 18th August, 2025 and was originally scheduled to conclude on 10th July 2026. In order to provide additional opportunity for eligible citizens who are yet to register, Commission has extended the exercise to Sunday, July 26, 2026.”

The INEC announced that the extension also covered weekends and public holidays, giving eligible Nigerians more time to register, transfer their registration, or update their voter details.
The Commission has said that it would no longer extend the date.

There has been a debate over the decision of the INEC to end registration several months before election. In some countries, voter registration goes on into an election, but in Nigeria, it is not so. With the expiration date of registration in July, it would mean that Nigerians who would be eligible to vote by turning 18 years of age two, three or even five months to the election date would not have the opportunity to vote.

Between July and January when the general election will commence is clear five to six months. But the INEC, explaining why registration of voters’ exercise cannot continue till a week before the date of election, said it was to enable the Commission to certify the register to be used for the election ahead of time.

Although many Nigerians have lost trust in the electoral process, leading to the singsong, “votes don’t count,” politicians still leverage the ballot to perpetrate electoral fraud, which is why cases of vote-buying have become widespread.

In a television interview, Wednesday, Ayobami Salami, a professor and Resident Electoral Commissioner, INEC, Lagos, urged Nigerians who were not yet registered to do so before the expiration date on July 26.

He dismissed the narrative by some Nigerians that votes no longer count in Nigerian elections, asking rhetorically, “If votes do not count, why do we still worry about vote-buying?”

As of today, the INEC puts Nigeria’s active voter population at 84,271,832. This is after adding 14,551,482 new voters registered during the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) to the previous 69,720,350 voters.

Final authenticated figures for the 2027 polls will be officially published by INEC following data clean-up and biometric verification.

 

Houses for judges rankles

Is there a correlation between the posh accommodation being dashed to judges in Nigeria and the increasing judicial rascality being noticed in the country these days? This is a disturbing question that many Nigerians are asking.

Nigerians watch in amazement as donations of houses are being flaunted on cameras at a time politically-related cases are flooding the courts. In recent times, some judgments that raised questions have emanated from various courts across the country.

These disturbing gifts started in Rivers when Nyesom Wike was the state governor. While he lasted on the power stool in Rivers, Wike never lost any case in court. His opponents accused him of compromising judges to obtain fair judgments.

Since he became the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), he has continued to replicate what he did in Rivers at the federal level. Many observers have described the gesture as dangerous.

Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State appears to have borrowed the template as he recently approved N25 billion for the construction of modern residential quarters for judges in the state. He plans to construct 40 fully detached duplexes to serve as official quarters for judicial officers.

The estate will come complete with recreational facilities to provide a comfortable and secure living environment.

In what he termed “Judicial Reforms”, the governor also announced that his administration would be upgrading the state’s judicial infrastructure. This includes commissioning new court complexes in local government areas (such as Oru East) and providing official Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) for state judges to aid in their duties.

By the same token, the Akwa Ibom State government has also been bitten by this bug as it has announced it was building a dedicated residential estate called the Judiciary Village in Uyo.

Located along Idongesit Nkanga Avenue (Ring Road III), the project consists of 50 five-bedroom duplexes exclusively for judges and senior judicial officials.

The initiative, according to Governor Umo Eno, was to provide secure and convenient accommodation for judicial officers. Construction commenced in early 2026, and has directed contractors to accelerate progress with a target to complete the estate for commissioning by December 2026.

Today, there is no clear demarcation between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial arms of government contrary to what is the idea as clearly spelt out in the nation’s Constitution.

The present crop of politicians in Nigeria has made a nonsense of everything that was held sacred, and has gone contrary to everything that made the country tick in the years gone by.

The separation of powers among the three arms of government in Nigeria is established in Sections 4, 5, and 6 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).

While Section 4 vests all legislative powers in the National Assembly (and State Houses of Assembly), responsible for making laws; Section 5 vests all executive powers in the President (and State Governors), responsible for executing and maintaining laws; Section 6 vests all judicial powers in the courts, responsible for interpreting laws and adjudicating disputes. Sadly, these have been collapsed into one- the Executive!

These posh houses are said to be completely equipped with every item of furniture (at the high end) needed for a comfortable life. The judges just need to move in with their briefcases as everything they need is provided.

This show of “magnanimity” has no place in the constitution. It has been described by critics as “gift that blinds the eye”.

For crying out loud, the judiciary was supposed to be independent. It has its own budget that is on the first-line-charge. Is anybody saying that the judiciary cannot take care of itself? Why singling out judges for this largesse? Why wouldn’t the government build houses for university professors who earn meagre salaries? Why must we publicise such gifts as to convey a wrong impression that it is normal in society?

Looking at what is going on these days- the seeming Greek gifts, the ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’ dalliance between the Executive and the Judiciary- it would be safe to conclude that the advice by the late Niki Tobi, JSC, who was professor of constitutional law, fell on deaf ears.

He was reported to have said: “I see from Exhibit EP2/34 the need for Nigerian Judges to maintain a very big distance from politics and politicians. Our Constitution forbids any mingling. As Judges, we must obey the Constitution. The two professions do not meet and will never meet at all in our democracy in the discharge of their functions.

“While politics as a profession is fully and totally based on partiality, most of the time, judgeship as a profession is fully and totally based on impartiality, the opposite of partiality. Bias is the trademark of politicians. Non-bias is the trademark of the Judge.

“That again creates a scenario of superlatives in the realm of opposites. Therefore, the expressions, ‘politician’ and ‘Judge’ are opposites, so to say, in their functional contents as above; though not in their ordinary dictionary meaning.

“Their waters never meet in the same way Rivers Niger and Benue meet at the confluence near Lokoja. If they meet, the victim will be democracy most of the time, and that will be bad for sovereign Nigeria.

“And so, Judges should, on no account, dance to the music played by politicians because that will completely destroy their role as independent umpires in the judicial process. Let no Judge flirt with politicians in the performance of their constitutional adjudicatory functions.”

 

Why do we reward rascality?

Jaws dropped Monday when the news broke that Ayo Fayose, former governor of Ekiti State, has been appointed as chairman of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA).

The surprise being expressed was not as a result of any doubt about the capability of Fayose to occupy such an office; it was because of the pattern of the appointment which has become very familiar.

It would seem that we are now seeing many appointments that are not meant to add anything to the good of the country, but merely politically-motivated space-filling appointments meant to reward rascality.

The “come and chop” invitation extended to Fayose is not the first of such. Fayose, who parades himself as a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is one of the vocal campaigners of the ruling party. He has said it severally that he would campaign for the re-election of President Bola Tinubu. During the last off-season gubernatorial election in his home state, Ekiti, he rooted for the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and publicly campaigned for the party.

In recent times, it had become clear that he was beholding the face of the powers that be in Abuja for a possible rehabilitation.

The recent nomination, screening, confirmation and posting of ambassadors drew flak, as a number of them on the list were those who, in the estimation of many Nigerians, are garrulous and rabble-rousers that should have no business with such sensitive jobs.

One of them who appeared before the Senate a few days ago was accused of inappropriate behaviour towards some women while he was in academia. And despite the deluge of petitions and weight of the allegations, the Godswill Akpabio-led Senate gave him a clean bill of health.

It would seem that there is something going for us in Nigeria, promoting radicalism and bad behaviour. Too bad.

 

When ‘glitches’ visited NBA

Those who thought that “glitches” as a word was only synonymous with the then Mahmood Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in election matters must have been proven wrong by the recently-concluded Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) election.

Although a winner has since been declared, the exercise was controversial as two of the three contenders have continued to allege some hanky-panky in the exercise.

Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who contested the presidential election, has continued to allege that technical failures and security breaches compromised the integrity of the process.

The NBA adopted E-voting in the national election that commenced midnight on July 18. By Saturday, Akangbe said the election had suffered a “catastrophic structural and technical collapse” less than three hours after voting commenced.

He urged the committee to halt the exercise, preserve all voting records, commission an independent audit of the platform and postpone the election until the identified issues were resolved.

Most of the accredited members were not able to vote as a result of the glitches.

Reports had it that less than 32 percent of registered voters decided the NBA election. It was suggested in some quarters that heavy traffic when voting commenced caused the glitches.

Akangbe’s first complaint centred on what he described as the collapse of the electronic voting portal.

He claimed that as of 2:09 am, the platform was inaccessible to the majority of the about 82,000 accredited voters, with users reporting errors, authentication failures and timeouts.

He also accused the Electoral Committee of the NBA (ECNBA) of partiality.

While Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) polled 47.18 percent of the 26,106 ballots cast; Lateef Omoyemi Akangbe secured 7,934 votes (30.39 percent) to come second, and Olumuyiwa Akinboro, also a SAN, polled 5,855 votes (22.43 percent) to take the third position.

What has bothered many Nigerians is the level of controversy surrounding an election of an elite group like the NBA.

NBA is one of the respected organisations that the INEC usually invites to monitor its elections and give their independent report. If such an organisation is now unable to organise a free, fair and credible election to elect its own president, what moral high ground does it have to pontificate on any faulty election organised by the INEC?

It is safe to say at this point, “Physician, heal thyself.”