Obasanjo calls for sack of INEC Chair, Mahmood Yakubu, Commissioners, others

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo demands the immediate removal of INEC Chairman Dr. Mahmood Yakubu and other top officials, urging electoral reforms during a speech at Yale University’s Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum.

Nov 19, 2024 - 08:01

Obasanjo calls for sack of INEC Chair, Mahmood Yakubu, Commissioners, others

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has called for the immediate sack of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Dr Mahmood Yakubu, alongside other high level officials of the commission across the country, as part of comprehensive electoral reforms in the country.
Obasanjo, who was also, a one-time military Head of State, spoke in a paper presented at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum at Yale University in the United States, to commemorates the legacy of the renowned late Nigerian author.
His pre-recorded address was titled “Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria.”

He labelled the 2023 general elections conducted by INEC as a "travesty," adding

that reforming the electoral process remained a critical priority for the country to progress.
According to him, as a matter of urgency, Nigeria must ensure the INEC Chairperson and their staff are thoroughly vetted, to ensure that participants in the electoral process are always dispassionate, non-partisan and of impeccable reputations.
His words, “Nigeria must ensure the appointment of new credible INEC leadership at the federal, state, local government, and municipal – city, town, and village – levels, with short tenures to prevent undesirable political influence and corruption, and to re-establish trust in the electoral system by its citizens.
“The INEC Chairperson must not only be absolutely above board but must also be transparently independent and incorruptible.”

Obasanjo further noted that INEC deliberately neglected to use two key technological tools available to it—the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, and it's Election Result Viewing Portal,I IReV,—during the 2023 presidential election, despite assurances from Dr Yakubu.
He further noted that, "The BVAS and IReV are two technological innovations that, prior to 2023, were celebrated for their potential to enhance the accuracy and transparency of our election results, eliminate the threat of election rigging, and boost public trust in electoral outcomes.
“These technologies were touted by the INEC chairman himself. In the end, these technologies did not fail. INEC willfully failed to use or implement them, which resulted in widespread voting irregularities. It was a case of inviting the fox into the henhouse," during the said 2023 general elections.
Meanwhile, a special report by a new organisation in the country has revealed that the Labour Party’s presidential candidate and former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, won the election in Rivers State based on IReV data, even as INEC declared President Bola Tinubu the winner in the state.

Lately, INEC has also been under fire over its shoddy handling of the Edo State off-cycle governorship election and for appointing individuals with partisan affiliations to key leadership roles. PREMIUM TIMES has previously reported on instances of partisan appointees being named as Resident Electoral Commissioners.

In the most recent appointments by President Tinubu, four nominees were linked to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC., just as the 2023 and other off-cycle elections conducted under his administration were widely condemned by both local and international observers as among the worst in the country's history.

INEC’s current chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, was appointed by former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 and reappointed in 2020. His tenure will expire next year. (Source: Daily Sun)