Traumatised Nigerians need a trailer-load of assurances to believe that anybody at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) means well for the country. There are some Nigerians today who can go into a feat if they hear the name INEC mentioned around them. The Commission’s new chairman knows this too well, and he has pledged to clean the Augean stables.
The opposition is blaming everything and everybody for their ineffectiveness and castrated roles at a time when many citizens are looking up to them. They have failed to excite Nigerians by their obvious lapses.
Amupitan’s sweet assurances
The appointment of Joash Ojo Amupitan, a professor and senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is not a happenstance.
Given the history of elections and the opprobrium that ill-delivered polls have brought to Nigeria, his coming at this time might be the solution that Nigerians desperately yearn for.
His name, “Joash”, aptly captures the essence of “his arrival” on the scene at this material point in time.
Joash, after whom his parents named him, was a king in Israel. One of the first things he did as king was to “repair the temple” of God. He gave specific directives to the priests to use the monetary offerings given by the people for temple repair.
Perhaps, having been tapped to come and carry out some repairs at the nation’s electoral process, the importance of the criticality of that assignment is not lost on him.
At the Citizens’ Townhall (meeting) organised by the Civil Society Network on Election Integrity in Abuja last Sunday, the INEC chairman gave what could pass off as a “sweet melody” in accordance with his re-engineering work at INEC.
At the event, the INEC chairman, while responding to a question on commitment to giving Nigerians a credible election in 2027, promised that he would deliver the best election ever held in the history of the country.
“I have noticed that what Nigerians desire is a perfect election. We will strive as much as possible to give this country the best election. However, we may not be able to achieve 100 percent perfection for now. But by the grace of God, the 2027 election will be the best Nigerians will ever have,” he said on camera.
The INEC chairman, who is also a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), did not stop there. He went on to say that one way to achieve the near-perfect election would be to put to the test some of the technologies that failed in 2023 with the aim of determining what really happened and then mitigating such glitches.
According to him, while certain technologies performed well in off-cycle governorship elections, broader national deployment during the 2023 presidential election exposed gaps that had not been adequately stress-tested across states.
So, for him, “One of the things we are going to do is to test the system more thoroughly before the next presidential election, so that transmission across states will not fail.” Good talk; good thinking!
Amupitan has continued to show signs of a man who has the interest of the country at heart. He uses every opportunity he has to pledge a transparent election in 2027.
When he was being sworn into office in October last year, he pledged to uphold integrity, transparency, and professionalism in the electoral process.
In his 2026 New Year message to staff of the commission nationwide, he said that preparations had already begun to strengthen the nation’s democratic process.
The doubts being expressed by many Nigerians on his capacity to deliver a credible election in 2027 rest on the aphorism that “he who pays the piper calls the tune.”
The refrain has been that the manner of appointment of the INEC chairman in Nigeria does not give room for the independence of the Commission, as the appointee is most likely to be subservient to the president who appointed him.
Even with the reassuring words of Professor Amupitan last Sunday, some Nigerians are still looking at him with the tail of their eyes. They do not believe him.
One of such incurable pessimists is Kenneth Okonkwo, a member of the African Democratic Alliance (APC), who expressed doubts over the sincerity of the INEC boss. He said that Nigeria always had people and appointees who talk in a very charismatic way but deliver little or nothing.
He pointed at Yakubu Mahmood, the immediate past INEC chairman, whom he said always spoke in a charismatic way and promised everything before the 2023 general election, only to turn around to blame glitches.
Some observers who have listened to the repeated promises of the INEC’s new chairman believe that it may be wrong to tar all the Commission’s bosses with the same brush, even when Amupitan has not been tested.
Nigerians are waiting to see how the professor will pull off a superlative and world-class election that synchronises with his superlative achievements in other spheres of life, without allowing his intimidating résumé to be tainted by electoral malfeasance.
Is opposition truly ready for 2027 election?
“A new clan of men is springing up to govern the nation; they are the hunters after popularity, men ambitious…the demagogues, whose principles hang loosely upon them, who follow not so much what is right as what leads to a temporary vulgar applause” — Joseph Story (1779-1845), an American Judge.
The above quotes capture the season we are in.
While the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is giving all the assurances of a fair and credible general election in 2027, the opposition parties are perceiving only the stench of treachery. They see an amalgam of forces laying ambush for them in 2027.
They accuse the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of sponsoring a crisis in their midst to ensure they continue to oscillate from one internal wrangling to another.
They perceive APC collusion with the INEC to, through policies and unfavourable timetable, incapacitate them and put them at incredibly difficult corner to make any positive showing at the election.
Beyond the cries and allegations of the opposition, many Nigerians are disappointed at the docility of the opposition in the country. They believe that the opposition is not doing enough to hold the feet of the government and the ruling party to the fire.
They wonder what the African Democratic Congress (ADC) is doing, for instance. Beyond meetings for photo-ups, Nigerians are not seeing any robust conversation that excites hope from the party in alliance. It appears that many of the so-called members are just there bidding their time.
Many Nigerians had expected that, by now, ADC would have settled the issue of who flies the party’s presidential flag in 2027. This decision, many believe, is very critical for the existence of the party. The ADC’s survival or otherwise, after the convention, will be determined by who emerges as its presidential candidate.
As of today, the only thing that comes out from the opposition camp is press releases. There are no intentionally organised events to sell their programmes to the people. There are no grassroots mobilisation. The way they operate has given critics cause to say that some of those erroneously being seen as chieftains of the opposition parties, even those who tout themselves as having presidential ambition, might be working for the ruling party, APC.
It is not enough to scream at every policy that the party in power reels out. What the masses want is a conversation that can assure them of a better alternative. For crying out loud, the game of politics is a brutal one, where players leverage whatever advantage they have against the opponent, and the weakness of an opponent is exploited to the fullest.
The APC is in power today and is using whatever means it deems necessary for its own good. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) did the same when it was in power, to the extent that the leadership at one point bragged that the party would continue to be in power for 60 years.
One thing about power is that it blinds the holder so much. It is also transient.
In Nigeria, there is really no difference between the PDP and APC except for their different names. The APC of today is populated by the PDP men of yesterday. The Nigerian politician does not care about whether it is Lucifer or Angel Gabriel that is the chef; what he cares about is, let my plate be full. There is no ideology.
Nigerians are wondering aloud why the opposition parties are so quiet, cowed and scared, if they actually want to make an impact in 2027. It is easy to allege intimidation by the ruling party, but where is their programme?
What is likely in the offing is a mortal combat during the selection process at conventions. Some members of the opposition may have made up their mind to play the spoiler game- “if I can’t have it, let’s destroy it.”
No opposition gets to power through wishful thinking, as “power is not served a la carte.”
The words of William (Penn Adair) Rogger, American humorist (1879-1935), come to mind.
“The more you read about, and observe this politics thing, the more you get to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that is out always looks the best,” he said.
