With the retirement on Tuesday of Yakubu Mahmood as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the stage is set for the appointment of his successor. Will political consideration trump love for the country?
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, was excessively excited the other day and decided to tell President Bola Ahmed Tinubu a pleasant story that gladdens the hearts of kings. He related a certain vision of welcoming more defecting governors into the ruling party’s fold soon. But is there nothing more important than defection?
Beyond the selection of Mahmood’s successor
“Soldier come, soldier go, the barracks remains” is a time-tested aphorism that has continued to be relevant today. Those who come on a stage and behave as if they have come to stay indefinitely discover that they are working against nature. After all, it is said that there is a time and season for everything under the sun.
On Tuesday, October 7, Yakubu Mahmood exited the power stool as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) after serving two terms of 10 years consecutively.
Listening to the high command of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Tuesday singing “Till we meet again…” as they saw off their retired boss from the office, it was more than emotional. But the way they chanted the song sounded more like a dirge than praise. If the rendition was meant to show camaraderie or to convey a “we will miss you” message, the choice of a song popularly sung at wake-keeps and during interment was terribly misplaced! But that’s a story for another day.
Read also: Tinubu delayed INEC chairman’s exit after send-off in June
The focus today is on who succeeds Yakubu Mahmood on a substantive note, not in an acting capacity. Many Nigerians are eagerly looking forward to hearing the name of the individual.
Many Nigerians speak in tandem that the new INEC chairman must be a person of impeccable character and unquestionable integrity; that he or she must be non-partisan and must not be affiliated with any political party, whether past or present; that the individual must be an expert in elections or a related field; and above all that he/she must be courageous and independent-minded to withstand political pressures and undue interference.
It must be stated straightaway that the problem with the retired Mahmood was not about competency. It was about the things he chose to do or not do, even though they mattered a lot. It is about the things he closed his eyes to. It is about his inability to insist that the right things be done under his watch without minding whose ox was gored. It was his being too malleable and his decision to yield to political manipulations that were his undoing.
He may have exhibited competency, but the outgoing INEC chairman did not acquit himself creditably in the estimation of many Nigerians.
His decision to hang in there as the INEC chairman until his tenure expired despite the deluge of calls for his resignation easily showed a character that conveyed impunity and insensitivity.
One man who strongly believes that Mahmood is worthy of many stripes by the way he handled the national assignment given to him is Peter Ameh, national secretary of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP).
Ameh said that Mahmood’s leadership was characterised by high-handedness, disregard for opposition parties, and a failure to uphold transparency in the electoral process.
“Under Professor Mahmood’s tenure, the opposition suffered. He was not accommodating when it came to opposition or multi-party democracy; all he wanted was to crush it. The high-handedness was much.
“When you talk about INEC, the commission’s primary duty is to conduct elections. During Mahmood’s tenure, there was corruption and mismanagement. Legitimacy was bastardised,” he said.
According to him, “The conduct of the 2023 general elections left a bitter taste in everybody’s mouth; that is what he will be remembered for.”
It is not altogether negative about Mahmood. Apart from leaving behind a legacy tainted with a welter of allegations and finger-pointing for wrongdoing, Mahmood introduced the automation of the nation’s electoral process. The introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal was proof that the willingness to do the right thing was there. Although those technologies were interfered with by desperate political actors, he deserves commendation for the conceptualisation in the first place.
With the expiration of Mahmood’s tenure on Tuesday, the seat is now vacant. All eyes are on the President, who, by virtue of the powers conferred on him by the Constitution, is the appointing authority. The Council of State plays an advisory role. It advises the President on that critical appointment. But it is the prerogative of the President to accept the advice or not. The Senate of the National Assembly plays an important role in the appointment, too.
Many Nigerians have asked the Senate to put the interest of the country first before that of their party by critically looking at the suitability of the individual sent to them by the President. The Senate has been urged to discard the “take a bow and go” method of screening that features on the floor of the chamber. Whatever the Senate does with the screening will either make or mar Nigeria’s future. It will either inspire hope and confidence in Nigerians or further alienate them from taking part in the electoral process.
Some governors and former ministers on Tuesday in Abuja asked the Federal Government to reform the INEC ahead of the 2027 general election to restore public confidence in Nigeria’s democracy and strengthen electoral credibility.
They spoke at a panel discussion hosted by the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership, with the theme “Innovation in Electoral Technology 2015–2025: Gains, Gaps, and the Road Ahead”, in Abuja.
The call was made at the launch of the Athena Election Observatory, an initiative designed to monitor and document electoral reforms, innovations and governance trends in Nigeria and across Africa.
Those who made the call included Anambra State Governor Chukwuma Soludo; Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal; former Minister of Interior Rauf Aregbesola; and National Secretary of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and former Minister of Aviation Osita Chidoka, who is also the Chancellor of the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership.
Even Soludo, who appears to have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the APC to leave Anambra alone for him in the forthcoming gubernatorial election in the state while he will reciprocate by ‘handing over the state to the President’ in 2027, seems unsure about what the INEC is capable of doing in any election; hence, his call on the Federal Government to fix the Commission before 2027.
Read also: Who is May Agbamuche-Mbu, the new acting INEC chairman
Today, there are twelve national commissioners of the INEC. While four of them are due for retirement in February 2026, the rest are retiring in 2027.
The call for less politics in choosing a substantive INEC chairman has become deafening. Nigerians have urged those responsible for that selection to make the overriding interest of the country a priority.
Whereas Prof. Abdullahi Abdu Zuru was appointed on September 15, 2021, he will retire on September 14, 2026; Prof. Kunle Cornelius Ajayi, appointed on October 25, 2021, will retire on October 25, 2026; Baba Bila was appointed on September 15, 2021, and will retire on September 15, 2026; and Prof. Sani Muhammad Adam, who was appointed on September 15, 2021, will retire on September 15, 2026.
Moreover, Prof. Rhoda Habor Gumus, Mohammed Haruna, Sam Olugbadebo Olumekun, Kenneth Ukeagu, May Agbamuche-Mbu, Prof. Sunday Nwambam Aja, Abdulrazaq Tukur Yusuf, and Modibbo Alkali were appointed on February 22, 2022; they will retire on February 22, 2027.
Haruna and Agbamuche-Mbu are two-term national commissioners before the latter became the acting INEC chairman on Tuesday. Ukeagu is a career staff member who rose from the rank of director to become national commissioner.
Nigerians are waiting with bated breath to hear the person on whose shoulders will rest the burden of superintending over the 2027 general election.
Akpabio and the vision of ‘captive’ governors
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, last Tuesday put on his binoculars to see more opposition governors getting ready to join the All Progressive Congress (APC). He was simply excited, and, in his hubris, he wasted no time in telling and assuring President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that more governors from opposition parties were already preparing to empty themselves into the ruling party.
He made the remark in Owerri thus: “Mr President, with what you have done in the last two years, get ready to receive more governors from the opposition parties. As I speak, there are several governors in Nigeria today who are ready to be received by you.”
Such talks have become common among the high echelon of the APC, particularly those who want to impress the President. Whenever they have nothing to say to please Aso Rock, they mouth opposition and how they have seen in their vision an army of defectors heading towards the APC.
Read also: No State is borrowing to pay salaries under Tinubu’s administration – Akpabio
What does it profit a country to have all the states under one political party, yet there is no good governance going on in them? What matters to Nigerians is that all the states, irrespective of their party affiliation, are applying the principles of democracy and the governors keep to the social contract with the people. So, it is infantile for the Senate President to clink glasses in anticipation of more opposition governors allegedly planning to empty themselves into the APC. It was equally childish of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, to boast that his party would take over Abia State in 2027. The question to ask is, is the current government in Abia living up to expectations in terms of good governance? The answer is crystal clear, except for those who delight in politics of mischief – see nothing, hear nothing, and, of course, commend nothing.
The overemphasis on defections by some principal actors in the ruling party has also put pressure on the INEC, further eroding the commission’s credibility in the eyes of Nigerians.
If you are calling on state governors to dump their parties and join the APC, it simply means that you are telling them that no matter what they do as state governors to please their people by way of good governance, the decision of the voters to reciprocate through a massive vote cast may not count, as there would be a resistance using some untoward means to invalidate the voice of the people through the ballot box.
Is anybody creating an impression that the great re-engineering work going on in Enugu and Abia States, for instance, by Governors Peter Mbah and Alex Otti, respectively, is not enough to convince their people to re-elect them on their individual platforms unless they move over to the APC?
It is conversations of this nature that have made the appointment of a more credible INEC chairman very imperative. For instance, with a competent and credible INEC chairman, there would be less fear of likely electoral fraud. There would be a high level of renewed trust in the electoral process, and that would enhance citizen participation, and there would be less pressure on state governors to want to dump their parties for the ruling party in the hope that their re-election is sacrosanct.
What is the point of calling everybody to join the ruling party? The game would become uninteresting if everybody were to be in one team. Today, people compete in different sports, and spectators gather to see different teams slug it out in the field of play. What makes such competition exciting is that two opposing teams are involved. Who would waste his/her time to go watch just one team facing one side and moving a ball in one direction without any resistance? Nobody will buy a ticket to go watch such an infantile display. Politics is exciting when different parties are involved. But it would seem that many politicians of today do not appreciate the true meaning of “the more, the merrier”. Akpabio and others must “live and let live”, please!
