Former Director-General of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, has expressed strong confidence that the new Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Joash Amupitan, will restore credibility to Nigeria’s electoral process.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, Odinkalu alleged that former INEC boss, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, presided over elections tainted by multiple and conflicting results, especially citing the Edo State governorship election as an example.
“Josh will not administer an election like in Edo State, where there were four results,” Odinkalu stated. “Mahmoud Yakubu perfected the act of producing elections with multiple results — one he announces, one on IReV, another given to party agents, and one tendered in court. That’s criminal.”
The human rights advocate accused Yakubu of bringing the electoral commission into disrepute, noting that his tenure witnessed a sharp decline in electoral credibility.
He backed his claims with statistics, explaining that the percentage of election results challenged in court dropped drastically under Prof. Attahiru Jega, but worsened again under Yakubu’s watch.
“In 2007, under Maurice Iwu, 86.35% of election results ended up in court. Jega reduced it to 51% in 2011 and 44% in 2015. By 2019, under Yakubu, it rose to 56.34%, and in 2023, it reached 83%. That tells you something — Mahmoud Yakubu ruined INEC,” Odinkalu said.
He, however, urged the new INEC boss to take urgent steps to rebuild public trust in the system and ensure fairer, more credible elections ahead of the 2027 general polls.
“Joash has a job to do. Nobody expects perfection, but he must start reversing the decline so that by 2027, we won’t have over 80% of our elections ending up in court,” he added.
