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Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has made history as the first chief executive of the electoral umpire to get a second term. But as an academic and a historian, the INEC boss knows what it means to repeat a session in an academic institution.
Despite his outstanding academic accomplishments and experience garnered over the years, especially at the Nigeria Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPPS), Kuru, near Jos; Prof. Yakubu came into INEC on November 9, 2015, as a rookie. And within the past five years as INEC chairman, he discovered that the commission was a peculiar institution that demanded more specialized knowledge and expertise garnered from hands-on experience.
By the time Jega left the commission after conducting the 2015 general elections, it was not generally known whether he acted the way he did out of modesty, decency, or exasperation. Some watchers of the country’s democracy said the former INEC boss called quits not to give room for speculations that he favoured the emergence of a northern president to win a second term in office.
Others however contended that Jega did not want to stay beyond the loud ovation that greeted his near-excellent delivery in addition to paving way for the appointment of a successor from the Southern part of the country given that the new president hails from the same geopolitical zone as he. President Muhammadu Buhari, who won the 2015 presidential poll, comes from Katsina State, while Jega hails INECfrom Kebbi State, both of which are in Northwest.
Change of mood
THE brief confusion as to what to do after Jega’s tenure expired was a quiet pointer to what was to become of not only INEC but also of the governance style of the new administration of President Buhari.
Jega had, in keeping with normal administrative principle, handed over to Ambassador Ahmed Wali, as the most senior officer in the commission. But, not minding that the outgoing INEC chairman announced his decision not to serve for another term, no action was taken to avoid a vacuum, only for the presidency to override Jega and settle for Amina Zakari.
The exit of Jega, who was seen as the hero of the change of baton from the incumbent president to the opposition candidate in the election, marked not only a change of mood in the commission but also a gradual somersault in the fortunes of the electoral commission, especially in the areas of reforms and transparency.
As he left the INEC headquarters Prof. Jega told journalists that he felt great, assuring that the future is bright for the commission and Nigeria. Also, the then INEC Secretary, Mrs. Augusta Ogakwa, disclosed that Jega sustained his optimism about the future of the commission in his handover notes.
Ogakwu said Jega tasked INEC to ensure that gains already recorded must not be allowed to go down, “because Nigerians and the world must have taken interest in the country’s election management system.”
However, it took public outrage against the Presidency’s plot to emplace Mrs. Amina Bala Zakari as INEC chairman for President Buhari to look towards the Northeast to select Prof. Mahmood Yakubu on July 31, 2015, for confirmation by the council of state and the senate screening.
Coming with cold
PROF. Yakubu did not have much time to settle down and acclimatize with the challenges of his new office before the baptism of fire. Barely one week after he was inaugurated into office as chairman, the Kogi State gubernatorial poll was due and threw up serious challenges.
Mrs. Zakari was also being pilloried for being a relation of President Buhari and when the question of what to do with the earned votes of the deceased candidate arose, the chairman had to fall back on the unsolicited counsel of the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami.
INEC had declared the election inconclusive during which time interparty schemes affected the scheduling of new dates and choice of new standard-bearer or replacement for the deceased APC candidate.
Analysts believe that denying James Faleke, Audu’s running mate the opportunity of inheriting the earned votes in the ballot was based on Prof. Yakubu’s naivety. Although the death of a candidate midway into an election was unprecedented, commonsense and logic dictated that Faleke should have been asked to pick a running mate and continue with the process or an outright cancellation to begin a new process.
The glitches in the 2016 Edo State governorship poll, which held after a similar exercise in Bayelsa State, left a dark patch on Prof. Yakubu’s first term.
It was at Bayelsa that the idea of simultaneous accreditation and voting was introduced. In 2016 when he visited the headquarters of The Guardian in Lagos, the INEC chairman disclosed that he had conducted many elections, especially court-ordered bye-elections than any other chairman in the history of Nigeria’s democracy.
On the constant criticism that trailed his tenure, Prof. Yakubu explained that ‘inconclusive’ was his own way of addressing the interference of violence with the electoral process. “When the number of canceled ballots exceeded the number of votes separating the winner and the first runner up based on the Permanent Voting Cards (PVCs), the right thing is to declare the election inconclusive according to the Electoral Act,” he stated.
Reports by reputable election monitors, including the African Union (AU), European Union (EU), and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) blamed ineptitude for INEC’s inability to foresee shortcomings that led to the postponement of the 2019 general elections six hours to the commencement of voting.
Transition, self-improvement
THE outcome of September 19, 2020, Edo State governorship poll showed that the INEC chairman was prepared to remedy the shortcomings that defined his first term. Perhaps, it is in recognition of the fact of the visible improvements in the performance of Prof. Yakubu’s INEC that President Buhari announced his reappointment for a second term.
Main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seems to have recognized the opportunities open to Prof. Yakubu to write his name in gold in the history of election management in the country.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan, PDP said the INEC chairman cannot blame inexperience in his second term, stressing that he should be mindful of the aphorism that “to whom much is given, much more is expected, his reappointment comes with a lot of expectations by Nigerians.”
According to PDP, Prof. Yakubu “must quickly take a painstaking look into issues that aid manipulations, rigging, violence and inconclusive elections which marred most of the exercises conducted in his previous tenure.
“It is, therefore, instructive to state that with his re-appointment, Prof Yakubu has been given ample time and opportunity to redeem himself, the image of the commission and preparation for credible, free and fair elections in our country.
“Furthermore, we consider this reappointment by President Buhari as an impetus to demonstrate readiness for a free fair, and credible election, which Mr. President had always promised to bequeath at the end of his second and final term in office in 2023.
Mahmood Yakubu was a lecturer, guerrilla warfare expert, and Professor of Political History and International Studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy. Before his first appointment as INEC chairman, he served as the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).
The INEC chairman also served as Assistant Secretary of Finance and Administration at the 2014 National Conference.
