There is a plot to compromise the 2027 general election through the instrumentality of appointing a yes-man as a replacement for Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the National Chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Yakubu’s tenure ends in November of this year when he will have served two terms.
At press time, Vanguard investigations revealed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is yet to be fully boarded on the plot’s platform.
However, forces pulling the strings from outside Aso Rock Presidential Villa are known friends of the President.
They are also working with powerful Aso Rock insiders.
The arrowhead of this move is a former South-South governor and a member of the class of 1999.
This comes at a time the credibility of the Election Management Body is suffering a massive discount due to the 2023 general elections and the off-season elections it has conducted since then.
One option being pursued for the plot to succeed is the nomination and confirmation of a malleable individual as Yakubu’s successor.
A number of names (withheld by Vanguard) is already being put forward for possible consideration.
Unfortunately, the individuals positioned by the plotters had served as National Commissioners of the Commission, and Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, who did not dress themselves in shining armour during their tenure.
In fact, the seemingly plausible consideration for their choice is the extent of their malleability, which would mean an erosion of INEC’s credibility in conducting free, fair, and credible elections.
Nigerians recall with nostalgia how the 2003 and 2007 general elections went, culminating in the public admission by a beneficiary of the 2007 sham presidential election, late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua, that there were flaws in the election that brought him to power.
Under a democracy with a written Constitution, unlike the British parliamentary system where the Constitution is unwritten, the power exercisable by any elected or appointed state official like the President must derive from the Constitution; otherwise, it is null and void.
That is why Section 1 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) declares unambiguously: “This Constitution is supreme, and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons, (including the President) throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The mode of appointment of the Chairman and members is provided for under Section 154(1) and (2) of the Constitution only. In exercising his power to appoint the Chairman or members of INEC, the Constitution mandatorily says, “the president shall consult the Council of State”, and such appointment again “shall be subject to confirmation by the Senate.”
The Constitution established INEC as genuinely independent and clearly stated under the Third Schedule, Paragraph 14, that its members “shall be persons of unquestionable integrity” and “shall not be members of a political party.”
Recently, card-carrying members of the ruling political party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, were appointed as Commissioners in INEC. Unfortunately, this practice did not start with the APC.
On Tuesday, June 30, 2015, something very curious but strangely indecipherable, happened when President Muhammadu Buhari, who rode on the back of the vigour and determination of Nigerians to engage change, threw INEC into a cesspit of needless controversy, by not appointing a substantive national chairman for INEC until the tenure of the largely reformative Professor Attahiru Jega ended.
Acting in line with statutes and order of seniority, Jega had handed over to Ambassador (Dr.) Ahmed Wali to head and supervise the activities of the commission until a substantive chairman is appointed “in consultation with the Council of State” – as stated by the constitution.
However, within 24 hours, Buhari, who had just been sworn-in, barely 36 hours earlier, overruled Jega and appointed a familial, nay filial relation, Mrs Amina Bala Zakari, as acting head of INEC.
The Head of The Civil Service of The Federation at that time, Barr. Danladi Kifasi, who conveyed the appointment in a letter, said the appointment was with effect from 30th of June, 2015 until the appointment of a substantive chairman.
But in terms of seniority, Wali trumped Zakari.
Interestingly, Buhari, who had been declared winner of the presidential election of March 2015 and who ought to have been briefed by his transition team on appointments he needed to make immediately he assumed office, either had no clue about what was happening in INEC or had made up his mind to appoint a family member as INEC chairman.
The furore Buhari’s misstep generated in the country at that time threw INEC under the bus and it took several investigative stories by Vanguard, accompanied by opposition from patriotic activists in the country to stop Buhari from appointing his ‘sister’ as INEC chairman.
It was not until Wednesday, October 21, 2015 — almost four months after — that Buhari appointed Professor Mahmood Yakubu as substantive INEC chairman, after a series of lobbying and counter-lobbying to get a ’suitable replacement’ for Jega.
That ‘suitable replacement’ conducted the two controversial 2019 and 2023 general elections – whereas the former was immersed in a controversy over the presence of a server in INEC, the latter suffered incalculable damage when its much- touted BVAS and IReV platforms were rendered ineffective.
There are five clear months ahead for President Tinubu to seek and appoint a fitting replacement in the mould of a Jega, as was done in Ghana, when Kwadwo Afari-Gyan’s tenure ended, and Madam Jean Mensa was appointed to continue the good works Afari-Gyan started.
Aso Rock insiders have reliably informed Vanguard that President Tinubu understands the importance of credible polls.
According to a source close to the President, “his declaration that NYSC members should be used to support the conduct of the coming census is not just about saving cost alone but about ensuring credibility of the process. It is the same way he is looking at the appointment of who will succeed Professor Yakubu. He wants a credible process, and he wants to help ensure that Nigerians’ confidence in INEC is not shaken”.
Nigerians remember President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan because of his legacy of the free, fair, and credible general elections in 2015. That is why he enjoys international recognition as a credible election observer.
Before Jonathan, former head of state General Abdulsalami Abubakar enjoyed plausible international recognition after he handed over to a civilian administration and completed a transition programme that saw a credible election process in 1999.
Owu-born former military and civilian president Mathew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo continues to enjoy international acclaim because of his 1979 transition programme, which birthed the Second Republic. This was when African Heads of State were transmuting into civilian presidents.
These speak to global recognition of the critical role credible elections play and the primacy of integrity of the leader under whose watch such elections are conducted or vice versa.
The Nigerian Electoral laws about the best in Africa but require operators with integrity
Like many African countries that subscribe to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, NEPAD, peer review democratic process and the AU Charter on Democracy and Good Governance, Nigeria has domesticated the same norms and standards and even gone further to extend their utility in the Nigerian context by innovating with processes such as Biometric electronic voters register, the use of electronic transmission of election results from polling units and several other amendments to the electoral rules approved by political actors based on experiential recommendations to improve the integrity of the electoral process.
Yet, despite these innovations, which, in many instances, are well ahead of other electoral legislative frameworks in Africa, operators often falter or are pressured to falter in implementing the framework’s provisions and guidelines.
The Akwa-Ibom and Abia instances demonstrated the important impact of human agency, which contrasted with the Adamawa scenario.
These contrasting scenarios, along with the dogged fashion demonstrated in Akwa Ibom by REC, Mike Igini, in pursuing the prosecution of two university professors for electoral offences and the actions of Professor Nnenna Oti in Abia, refusing to be cowed into announcing a fraudulent result, are stark comparisons to the actions of Adamawa REC, who, against electoral guidelines, decided to announce a fictitious governorship election result.
In the same vein, removing one Chidi Nwafor as Director of ICT negatively impacted the 2023 general elections, particularly the embarrassing malfunctioning of the IREV, the inviolability of which Professor Yakubu had boasted.
Then there is the non-re-appointment of Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu, a National Commissioner in charge of Operations who saved the Anambra elections from manipulation — even from internal sabotage — and represents a blight by not acknowledging and promoting appointees who have demonstrated a high sense of integrity.
Even the late Professors Eme Awa and Humphrey Nwosus’s team of electoral operators still have some living members.
Whereas they may have advanced in age, Professors Adele Jinadu, a former National Commissioner, and Tonnie Iredia, NEC Director of Public Affairs, are still alive and their institutional memory would be invaluable to the Tinubu administration.
The Nigerian electoral process requires a root and branch reform beyond policing election malpractice and fraud, one steeped in appointing and retaining those with a proven track record of diligence and probity.
The appointment of tested and trusted hands will assist in de-escalating the competitiveness of elections, and the process may become more manageable in terms of procedures, including minimising the influence of political actors in determining how election laws are formulated and approved.
Such reforms and several others recommended and widely accepted by citizens as necessary for election integrity should be championed by the Tinubu regime as someone who rose to leadership under a process of resistance to election annulment.
Obtaining the public’s support for such revival will be a significant step towards greater legitimacy, as will appointing credible election managers to steer such reforms to the EMB.
Former Chairman of INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, who battled forces against the commission, ensured that the 2015 general elections enjoyed credibility while working with some trusted National Commissioners and RECs.
Curiously, some of those with whom Jega delivered the 2015 election were gradually eased out of the system.
More curiously, Vanguard investigations have revealed that the Buhari administration’s deliberate policy is to cease re-appointing some of the most truculent adherents to the rule of law and the electoral guidelines of INEC.
That was why the general elections of 2019 suffered disputations over the issue of the INEC Server, which suddenly became non-existent after being approved, budgeted for, and bought.
This was even after the national chairman had openly boasted that a server would warehouse the results of that year’s elections.
Apart from 2003, when 39 million Nigerians were said to have trooped out to vote, a figure representing 69.1%, the population of Nigerians who vote at every general election cycle has continued to dwindle (See box). In 1999, 29.8 million people were said to have voted (52.3%); in 2007, 35.4 million voted (57.5%) and the election was considered a rape on free, fair and credible polls; in 2011, 38.2 million voted (53.7%); in 2015, 28.6 million voted (43.7%); in 2019, 27.3 million voted (34.8%); and in 2023, 24 million voted (26.7%).
A combination of factors, ranging from voter apathy occasioned by a lack of trust in INEC and the continuing hardship voters face on the day of the election, to logistical issues that appear not to be improving, election day violence that scares voters away, and a growing frustration on the part of voters that their votes do not count, is responsible.
The problem may get worse in 2027 because, for all the promises and assurances given by Professor Yakubu about the inviolability of BVAS and IReV, promises that galvanised millions of Nigerians to show interest in the election, their hopes were dashed once it was discovered that some results were not uploaded.
To avoid this, weaknesses in pre-election matters need to be strengthened; post-election dispute resolution reforms need to be implemented, and BVAS and result transmission need to be strengthened.
If President Tinubu can see to the implementation of some of these recommendations and a few others, he may be building a legacy of probity and integrity.
