Before, during, and after every election cycle in Nigeria, the role of the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission has remained shrouded in ambiguity. He does not emerge from the will of the people but from the corridors of presidential discretion, cloaked in the illusion of neutrality and armed with a whistle that rarely calls foul. Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the outgoing INEC chairman, is one such figure – neither villain nor hero, but a symbol of a system that has mastered the art of evasion. His tenure, punctuated by the 2023 elections, will not be remembered for bold innovations but for the quiet retreat from accountability. BVAS and IReV, once hailed as instruments of transparency, became props in a play whose ending had already been written. The servers slept, the results wandered, and the people watched – weary-eyed, familiar with the script.
As the curtain falls on Yakubu’s tenure, the nation braces for the next act. Speculation over his successor has become a pastime, a parlour game played in political circles and media spaces. Names float – Justice Abdullahi Mohammed Liman, Prof. Lai Olurode, Kenneth Ukeagu, Sam Olumekun, Prof. Bashiru Olamilekan, and, most recently, Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN – each name carrying the weight of regional expectations, religious affiliations, and the unspoken calculus of power.
In Nigeria, appointments are rarely about competence alone. They are about balance, appeasement, and the delicate dance between centrifugal and centripetal forces. Barring a miracle or what lawyers call force majeure, the Presidency, through its trusted emissaries, will announce the chosen one in a matter of days. The Senate, expectedly, will nod in approval. The ritual will be complete, the robes re-tailored, and the whistle passed before the month ends.
Yet, beneath this seamless transition lies a deeper malaise. The problem is not merely who becomes the next chairman, but what the institution itself has become. INEC, in its current form, is a cathedral of compromise. It is trained in logistics but not in ethics, fluent in acronyms but silent on accountability. Its staff, often diligent, operate within a culture that rewards caution over courage, procedure over principle. The chairman, no matter how well-intentioned, becomes a prisoner of this opaque architecture – a custodian of a system designed to bend, not to break.
To imagine a different future, we must begin with the architecture of appointments. The idea that the President should select the referee of elections is a contradiction too glaring to ignore. It is akin to a player choosing the umpire, a lion appointing the judge of the jungle. Justice, in such a setting, is not blind – it is blinkered. The process must be wrested from the executive and entrusted to a truly independent Electoral Appointments Commission, composed of retired jurists, civil society leaders, and scholars of unimpeachable integrity. Public hearings must replace closed-door screenings. Transparency must replace opacity. And the people must be allowed to witness the making of the man who will referee their democracy.
Yet, even this reform, radical as it may seem, is insufficient. For the disease is not only in the process – it is in the culture. INEC must be reimagined not as a bureaucratic outpost but as a moral institution. Its mandate must extend beyond the conduct of elections to the cultivation of civic trust.
The next chairman must be more than a technocrat. He must be a philosopher of democracy, a priest of legitimacy, a steward of the republic’s fragile soul. He must understand that elections are not mere events – they are rituals of renewal, ceremonies of consent. When that consent is manufactured, the republic bleeds.
There is a story told in a village where elections were once conducted with stones. Each voter placed a stone in the basket of their chosen candidate. One day, the chief’s son was losing. So, the chief ordered the baskets switched. The villagers, seeing the fraud, stopped voting. Years later, when the chief died, no one came to his funeral. The lesson is simple: when the vote is stolen, the soul of the community dies. Nigeria has buried many such souls. From the ghost of June 12 to the spectre of 2007, from the illusion of 2019 to the heartbreak of 2023, each election has been a stone in the basket of betrayal. Each chairman is a priest at the altar of manipulation.
And history, ever watchful, remembers them all. Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, who presided over the 1993 elections, remains the tragic hero of Nigeria’s democratic mythology, the home-grown version. Under his watch, the most credible, freest and fairest election in Nigeria’s history was conducted on June 12, 1993. The results, widely believed to favour Chief MKO Abiola, were annulled by the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. Nwosu, silenced and sidelined, became a symbol of what could have been. His tenure was marked by innovation – the introduction of the open ballot system, Option A4 – and by betrayal, not of the people, but by the state.
Justice Ephraim Akpata followed in the Fourth Republic, overseeing the 1999 elections that ushered in civilian rule. His tenure was brief, and the elections, though flawed, were accepted as a necessary rebirth. Akpata’s legacy is one of transition, not transformation – a bridge between military disengagement and democratic experimentation. Dr Abel Guobadia, who succeeded Akpata, conducted the 2003 elections. His tenure was marred by logistical failures and allegations of rigging. The elections were widely criticised, and Guobadia’s INEC was seen as pliant to the interests of the ruling party. His exit was quiet, his legacy muted.
Prof. Maurice Iwu, appointed in 2005, presided over the 2007 elections – arguably the most chaotic in Nigeria’s democratic history. Ballot boxes disappeared, results were fabricated, and violence marred the process. The late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the biggest beneficiary of that election, publicly admitted its flaws. Iwu’s tenure was defined by opacity and controversy. His name, bastardised as “Wuruwuru” by critics, became synonymous with electoral malpractice, and his exit was met with relief.
Then came Prof. Attahiru Jega in 2010, a breath of fresh air in a polluted chamber. Appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan, Jega introduced the card reader and biometric verification, signalling a shift towards technological credibility. The 2015 elections, which saw the defeat of an incumbent president, were hailed as a watershed. Jega’s calm demeanour, academic rigour, and refusal to bend under pressure earned him respect. Yet even his tenure was not without blemish – logistical delays, regional disparities, and the ever-present spectre of political interference.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, by contrast, leaves behind a legacy of ambiguity. He will be remembered not for what he did but for what he failed to do. He will be archived not as a reformer but as a reminder – that technology without integrity is specious, not transformational.
And yet, the people endure. They queue under the sun, clutching their PVCs like sacred scrolls, hoping that this time, the gods will listen. But the gods are deaf, or perhaps they are drunk on power. It is time to sober up. Never again should the inheritor of a fraudulent mandate spend time in office without consequence. If a leader admits to benefiting or is found out to have benefited from a scrumptiously illegal process, from a flawed process, that admission or revelation must trigger constitutional review. If a court finds that an election was rigged, the mandate must be revoked – not rationalised in any shape or form. The era of “let him finish his term” must end. Democracy is not a buffet where stolen mandates are digested with impunity.
Let us legislate a Mandate Revocation Act. Let us establish Electoral Crimes Tribunals. Let us demand public accountability reports after every election. Let us make it clear: the ballot is sacred, and those who defile it must be excommunicated from power. There are examples to learn from. In The Gambia, Alieu Momar Njai declared the defeat of dictator Yahya Jammeh, fled under threat, and returned triumphant. In Ghana, Charlotte Osei faced political pressure, delivered credible elections, and exited with dignity. In South Africa, the Electoral Commission operates with fierce independence, respected by all. These are African examples, not the West that we often cite in our anomalous analogies.
And so, as the nation prepares to anoint a new electoral umpire, let us not be distracted by names alone. Let us interrogate the structure, the culture, and the philosophy. Let us ask not only who the chairman is but also what the chairman believes. Does he understand that democracy is not a transaction but a trust? Does he see the ballot not as a tool of power but as a symbol of dignity? Does he recognise that legitimacy is not conferred by courts but earned through credibility?
Hypothetically, let us imagine three scenarios. In the first, the president appoints a loyalist – a man of credentials but no conviction. The Senate rubber-stamps the nomination. Civil society protests, but the appointment stands. The 2027 elections are conducted with new gadgets, new slogans, and old tricks. The ruling party wins. The opposition cries foul. The courts dismiss the petitions. The people sigh. Democracy limps on, wounded but not dead, staggering forward with the weight of its own contradictions.
In the second scenario, the President defies expectations. He appoints a reformer – a scholar, a retired judge, or a civil society veteran with no partisan baggage. The Senate, sensing the public mood, confirms him without drama. He audits INEC, engages civil society, and restores credibility to the institution. The 2027 elections are competitive, transparent, and largely accepted. The winner – whether incumbent or challenger – governs with legitimacy. The people begin to believe again. Not because they are naïve, but because they are finally respected.
In the third, the appointment is delayed. Legal challenges arise. The process is mired in controversy. The chairman is appointed late, unprepared, and overwhelmed. The elections are chaotic. The damage is done before the first ballot is cast.
So, as the nation stands once again at the threshold of electoral transition, the question is not simply who will wear the robe of the next INEC chairman, but whether the robe itself still carries meaning. The history of Nigeria’s electoral umpires is not a tale of personalities – it is a chronicle of institutional fragility, of promises made and broken, of ballots cast and buried. From Nwosu’s silencing to Jega’s stoicism, from Iwu’s infamy to Yakubu’s ambiguity, each chapter has left behind not just a name but a lesson.
And the lesson is this: democracy cannot be referred to by those appointed to please power. It cannot be protected by institutions built to bend. It cannot be trusted when the ballot is treated as theatre and the people as props. The next chairman must not be a manager of logistics but a steward of legitimacy. He must not be a servant of the state but a sentinel of the republic. He must not inherit the chair as a privilege but as a burden – a sacred duty to restore what has been lost.
The people, for all their weariness, have not abandoned the ritual. They still queue. They still vote. They still hope. But hope, like democracy, is not infinite. It must be fed with truth, watered with justice, and shielded from betrayal. The next umpire must understand that he does not merely count votes – he counts trust. And when that trust is broken, it cannot be tallied again.
Let the appointment be more than a name. Let it be a turning point. Let it be the moment when Nigeria stops waiting for democracy to happen and begins insisting that it must. Let it be the moment when the whistle is no longer a symbol of silence but a call to conscience.
In the end, the ballot is not just a piece of paper. It is the voice of a people. And that voice, long muffled, deserves to be heard – not in echoes, but in clarity. Not in compromise, but in conviction. Whoever you are, the next chairman, be warned. History is watching. It will not forget.
