Concerned stakeholders and Nigerians generally are expecting improved credibility in the electoral process, reforms, efficient logistics management and more deployment of technologies in the next five years of Mahmood Yakubu as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Yakubu, who would be handing over to a yet-to-be-named Acting Chairman of the Commission on Monday, November 9, 2020, the same date he assumed the coveted office in 2015 is awaiting Senate confirmation for a second term.
The Professor of History and International Relations recently broke the jinx as the first Nigeria’s head of the electoral body to be reappointed for a second term when President Muhammadu Buhari sent his nomination to the Senate.
History revealed that no Chairman of the country’s electoral body has served more than one term in office from Eyo Esua (1964–1966), Michael Ani (1976 – 1979), Victor Whisky (1979 – 1983), Eme Awa (1987–1989), Humphrey Nwosu (1989–1993), Okon Uya and Sumner Dagogo-Jack (1994–1998), Ephraim Akpata (1998 – 2000), Abel Guobadia (2000-2005), Maurice Iwu (2005-2010) to Attahiru Jega (2010-2015).
However, the case of Yakubu became different when President Buhari in a letter to President of the Senate, Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan said in accordance with the provision of Section 154 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) sighted by BusinessDay SUNDAY stated that:
“I am pleased to present for confirmation by the Senate, the nomination of Professor Mahmood Yakubu for appointment as Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for a second and final term”, Buhari stated in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina.
Yakubu’s last five years tenure as it is in marriage was never bed of roses as they were mixture of “the good, the bad and the ugly”.
He first came under trial with the declaration of the November 2015 Kogi State Governorship election inconclusive, after the Commission had earlier announced the results of the election from all the 21 local government areas in the state.
The events that characterised the adjudged flawed governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun States and the last-minute postponement of last 2019 Presidential and National Assembly elections in 2019 further casted a lot of aspersions on INEC under Yakubu.
The former Director-General of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) was also in the middle of the storm after the heavily criticized 2019 general elections as well as the Bayelsa and Kogi off season Governorship polls which were viewed as sham.
However, Yakubu has in the twilight of his tenure written his name in gold, following the outcome of the September 19 Edo and October 10 Ondo Governorship elections which was made possible with the introduction of INEC RESULT VIEWING (IReV) that enabled Nigerians to view Polling Unit results real time as the voting ended in the recent polls which reduced the incidences of results manipulations.
IReV which was first experimented in the August 8th, 2020 Nasarawa Central State Constituency bye-election and subsequently the Edo and Ondo polls, according to INEC was to further strengthen the transparency in the election result management system which has remained a major source of mistrust in Nigeria’s electoral process.
The innovation has restored some level of confidence in INEC as at the end of the Edo Governorship election even the worst critics of the Commission and the electoral process, such as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) applauded the use of the virtual portal by INEC to upload results directly from the polling unit as it said the application made it impossible for electoral violators to hijack the electoral process.
Apart from that, INEC under Yakubu has been automating the critical pillars of the electoral process such as continuous updating of biometric register of voters and use of the Smart Card Reader (SCR) which have revolutionised the accreditation of voters during elections as well as simultaneous accreditation and voting.
More recently, INEC introduced a number of portals that facilitated the seamless nomination of candidates for elective offices by political parties as well as the accreditation of observers and the media.
These modest efforts has earned Yakubu goodwill from political parties, civil societies and other critical stakeholders who see his reappointed as an opportunity for consolidation even as they set demand improvement in his second coming.
Notably, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) said the reappointment of Yakubu as INEC Chairman should serve as an impetus to demonstrate readiness for a free fair and credible election as the fate, hope and future of over 200 million Nigerians as well as that of generations yet unborn are entrusted to him.
According to PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan the party hopes that the failures, disappointments and miscarriages that characterised the first five years tenure of Yakubu will have no place in his second coming.
“It is therefore, instructive to state that with his re-appointment, Prof. Yakubu has been given an ample time and opportunity to redeem himself, the image of the commission and preparation for credible, free and fair elections in our country.
“We, therefore, charge the INEC Chairman to spend the nearly two years ahead of the next general election to rejig the commission, work out appropriate electoral policies and guidelines and push for the amendment of the Electoral Act, in conjunction with the National Assembly, to give our nation a credible electoral process”, he said.
Also, the Situation Room said the reappointment provides Yakubu an opportunity for lessons learned from the 2019 general elections and recent off-cycle elections to be taken and long-lasting improvements made to Nigeria’s electoral process.
The Situation Room made up of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in support of credible and transparent elections in Nigeria said it ‘’welcomes the nomination of Prof. Yakubu for a second tenure as Chairman of the Commission.’’
The Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) urged Yakubu to continue with the strident effort to help in the reformation of the electoral process and asked the Chairman to ensure that Nigerians votes count in all elections in the country going forward.
Speaking with BusinessDay SUNDAY, Director of the Centre for Democratic and Development Idayat Hassan called on Yakubu to prioritise working with National Assembly to get an Electoral Amendment and ensure improvement of election logistics in second tenure.
According her: “Beyond the issue of Electoral Act Amendment, one of the key issues to prioritise is the issue of logistics management. In some elections logistics management continue to be a challenge. This is the opportunity to finally fine tune the management of elections. We all know that logistics play a very important role to play in election management.
“Secondly is the introduction of more technologies. He has to do more for technologies that add to the credibility of elections. To the electronic voting why that is welcome we have to take cyber security important so that it doesn’t have the opposite impact”.
For Christian Okeke, lecturer in the Department of Political Science, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, the INEC Chairman, has a lot of work to do in cleaning up the electoral process and delivering credible election to Nigerians throughout his second tenure if confirmed by the Senate as those tasks are what the people expect from the umpire.
He said the INEC Chairman must find ways of resolving the usual operational challenges encountered by his Commission in terms of late arrival of materials to most polling centres during elections when he returns.
“It is a pity that the political environment in the country which is usually elevated to ridiculous and violent levels by desperate politicians whenever elections approach is not helping the cause of INEC in conducting elections that are fair and violence-free. Understandably, it poses difficulty for INEC to conduct elections in such tensed atmosphere, especially when it does not control all the apparatuses that must enable it navigate through the political storm during elections, with other critical and complementary stakeholders feeling indifferent or handicapped to act as expected,” Okeke said.
“This is why Professor Yakubu has to push for reform and legislation, in conjunction with the National Assembly, to guarantee INEC some form of absolute control over the entire machinery needed for conducting free, fair and credible poll, particularly during each election. This includes raising its manpower and ensuring that it controls important logistics like security, transportation and finance,” he further said.
According to him, “Uploading of unit level election results on INEC’s IREV portal witnessed in the recent governorship elections was a welcome development, just like the proposal to test-run the e-voting with the forthcoming governorship election in Anambra State. Expectation is that he finds ways to strengthen these processes so as to improve on the credibility of our elections.”
“INEC under Prof. Yakubu must be smarter than the array of demagogues dotting the political space, just as it must consider delivery of credible polls as a sacred duty which it owes to God and men”, the Political Scientist admonished.
