October 12, (THEWILL) — Key stakeholders fear that despite his impressive Curriculum Vitae and competence, the incoming National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, may underperform like his predecessors unless enabling electoral and constitutional reforms are put in urgently before the 2027 General Election.
The stakeholders insist that the prevailing institutional and traditional process of appointments into INEC, funding procedures, logistics in the conduct of elections and less reliance on technology to drive the electoral process have continued to form major drawbacks on the effectiveness and efficiency of the Commission.
Recurrent failures in the conduct of elections in Nigeria are late arrival of materials, vote-buying, violence, lack of transparency in the collation of results, the stakeholders insist. The introduction of technology during the 2023 election complicated rather than resolved outstanding logistic issues because the adopted Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, malfunctioned either because of lack of power or ignorance on the part of INEC’s ad-hoc staff, thereby resulting in the lack of credibility of the results.
Before Amupitan’s nomination, many Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, in collaboration with foreign partners had continued to press for electoral reforms that would enable INEC to change the current narrative and deliver more widely accepted polls devoid of disputes among contestants and confer local and international legitimacy on elected leaders.
Speaking with THEWILL briefly, Lanre Arogundade, Executive Director of the International Press Centre, said that CSOs, particularly those of them who are partners under the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria, EU-SDGN, project, submitted a Citizens Memorandum on Electoral Reforms to the National Assembly sometime ago.
“One of the major demands is that the process of the appointment of the INEC Chairman and National Commissioners should be expanded whereby the public has to be involved in the selection process. Those who occupy those seats must be persons of proven character and integrity. Then elections should be technology-driven, the approach to resolving logistics challenges must be broad based. The media, CSOs should have a say in all these processes,” he said.
However, entrenched interests among the governing elite have never gone beyond paying lip service to electoral reforms and sabotaging the efforts of advocates of reforms.
STAKEHOLDERS’ DEMANDS
Without exception, however, stakeholders who spoke with THEWILL applauded Amupitan for his academic qualification and competence, but they insist that there are booby traps on his way that would make him underperform.
According to the National Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee, Alhaji Yusuf Mamman Dantalle, while the advocacy for electoral and constitutional reforms to reposition INEC for transparent performance appears to lag behind other proposals at the National Assembly, political parties cannot but welcome the incoming Chairman of INEC and expect him to improve on the past performances of his predecessors.
“His profile is rich as a professor of law but expectations among Nigerians are very high. Many Nigerians, I can tell you from experience, have little confidence in the political system, not just INEC. So, Prof Amupitan should not sleep. There are many elements in the system who would want to suffocate him, with pressures from politicians and different quarters. Our advice to him, therefore, is that he must strive to be above board and work in allegiance to the Constitution and not individuals,” he told THEWILL on Friday.
He urged Amupitan to sustain the regular interactive sessions that Prof Mahmood Yakubu had with “political parties so as to boost confidence within the system.”
Monday Ubani, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is however insistent that without the necessary electoral and constitutional reforms, the system will frustrate the new INEC chairman nominee.
“My take is that he has not done this kind of job before, so it is not going to be easy for him. Academically, he is qualified, but the position of INEC Chairman carries a different dynamism. I am yet to see any Chairman that left the place with his integrity intact. That is why ongoing electoral reforms must be passed with vigour because if they are not carried out, I do not see how he would succeed,” he said.
According to him, reforms crying for urgent attention are in the areas of electronic transmission of results of election, insulating INEC from being compromised, removing the burden of proof on election petitioners and protecting the voter from any form of intimidation. These are his surest bets to success on the job.
While welcoming Amupitan to INEC, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, CNPP, urged Nigerians to give him the benefit of the doubt and be prepared to watch how he performs his first test on the conduct of the upcoming governorship election in Anambra State on November 8, 2025.
According to the CNPP, how INEC conducts that election will set the tone for public trust ahead of the 2027 general election.
“The Anambra election will be the first major poll under Professor Amupitan’s leadership,” Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Comrade James Ezema, in a note to THEWILL, said, adding that, “It will provide him and the Commission the chance to demonstrate a new commitment to credibility and efficiency in the management of elections. The entire nation will be watching to see if INEC can truly rise above political pressures and logistical failures that have undermined past elections.”
Arguing that Professor Amupitan must remember that Nigerians are yearning for a credible electoral process that reflects the true will of the people, Ezema further said, “We urge him to ensure that he leaves the office of INEC Chairman with his integrity intact and his reputation untainted, by serving the nation with courage, fairness and sincerity of purpose.”
Similarly, the Middle Belt Forum, MBF, say that Amupitan “must prove to Nigerians that he is apolitical and does not lack integrity, which will make Nigerians trust him to deliver free and fair elections.”
Spokesperson of the Forum, Luka Binniyat, who expressed his frustration in an interview with this newspaper over the seeming lack of adequate legislative attention to prolonged advocacy for constitutional review of INEC’s status as championed by the MBF and the Patriots, led by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, said, “We hope that somebody of Amupitan’s qualification should have the courage to uphold certain standards commensurate to his profile and leave his reputation intact.
“We hope the constitutional and electoral review will be done by the National Assembly before 2027 and assented to by the President or else it will be difficult to see how the INEC Chairman will work against the interests of those who appointed him.”
Professor of Political Science at the University of Lagos, Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, who stated that objective reality will dictate how Amupitan performs in office, throws the challenge of overcoming the crisis in the political process at Nigerians.
“Professor Amupitan has the right qualifications to be able to navigate the tempestuous waters of electoralism. Every Nigerian who exercises a franchise is a member of a political party, real or nominally. The taste of the pudding is in the eating. Time will tell,” he said.
NASS PROMISE
Even so, the National Assembly, which has admitted to the necessity for electoral reforms, has pledged to do the needful, in the coming days, albeit a little too late, especially as it affects the appointment of the INEC National Chairman.
In December, two months to the end of the year, the National Assembly has promised to pass electoral reforms that would positively impact the electoral process in the country.
House Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, made the promise last week that NASS will expedite action on the mounting bills on the timing of elections, independent candidacy, internal democracy in political parties, affirmation on women representation and appointment of INEC Chairman, before December.
Speaking to a delegation of the European Parliament, led by Barry Andrews, which paid him a courtesy visit and harped on the need for electoral and constitutional reforms, the House Speaker stated that senior lawmakers want to see all elections held on the same day, particularly the presidential, governorship and National Assembly polls. Apart from drastically reducing election costs, the timing, would also boost voter turn-out as the electorate has been known to participate more in national than state elections, Abbas told his visitors.
Continuing, the Speaker also disclosed that independent candidacy would expand the scope of choice for the voters and cause political parties to be more open in their conduct at the risk of losing aggrieved members.
Other areas under consideration in the proposed election reforms, according to Abbas, include “taking away the power to appoint the INEC Chairman from the President and into the hands of the National Judicial Council and establishing an Electoral Offences Commission, ensuring that all pre-election matters are resolved before office holders are sworn in, creating a Local Government Elections Commission and reserving parliamentary seats for women and persons with disabilities.”
Addressing Mr Andrews’ fears as regards the NASS ability to pass the proposed reforms before December, considering the procedures involved in constitutional amendment, Abbas reassured the delegation that it would be done.
“We agreed that because of some of the amendments that we want to bring forth, some are by way of Act of Parliament, some are by constitutional amendment – we will fast track and isolate the electoral issues, take them as one single entity and push them forward for the National Assembly to deliberate and take a position; and then send them to the sub-nationals (state Houses of Assembly) to also consider them within a short timeframe, between now and December,” he said, adding, “The reforms will give INEC enough time to implement changes well before the 2027 polls.
Amos Esele is the Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
