A New Dawn for Nigeria’s Electoral Commission
Joash Amupitan’s appointment as the eighth substantive chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) since 1999 comes at a critical moment. He steps into an arena marred by decades of electoral misconduct, a country where governance has long been undermined by elections that fail to reflect the will of over 230 million people.
From the annulled June 12, 1993, presidential polls to the controversial 2023 vote, the ballot box has often served as a tool of disappointment rather than hope. Nigerians are yearning for a new era—one where every vote cast in the polling cubicle is counted, where the voters’ choice is recognized, and where this leads to good governance.
Amupitan’s name carries historical weight, evoking nostalgia for significant events in Yoruba lore. His inauguration on October 23, at the Presidential Villa, was not just a ceremony but a covenant with a nation on the brink. Amupitan must make it count.
“The era of endless court battles over elections is over,” he declared, vowing to purge the system of its reliance on legal technicalities. Elections, he insisted, must be won at the polling units, not salvaged through courtroom maneuvering.
He pledged a “free and fair ballot”, one free from the shadows of manipulation that have plagued INEC’s legacy. This bold rhetoric resonates with the demands of millions of Nigerians. Amupitan’s words suggest a shift from a reactive commission to a proactive one.
Yet, his performance will be judged not by catchy phrases but by his rational, unbiased, courageous, and transparent oversight duties. His immediate predecessor, Mahmood Yakubu, left without much recognition, promising much but delivering less.
To live up to his name, Amupitan must transcend the ordinary and foster an electoral renaissance that restores faith in the Fourth Republic. This is no small task.
Nigeria’s electoral history is riddled with duplicity. The 1964-65 polls ignited the First Republic’s downfall or “Operation Wetie” that led to military interventions in January 1966. The memory of the 2007 “do-or-die” infamy under Olusegun Obasanjo is still fresh. Even the celebrated 2015 transition owed more to Goodluck Jonathan’s restraint than to INEC’s zeal.
Amupitan’s rise to the helm of INEC demands that he outshine these ghosts and create a commission immune to partisanship.
His first major test comes this Saturday in Anambra, where a treacherous election required a prolonged courtroom battle, resulting in Nigeria’s first off-cycle election in 2006 after the return to civilian rule in 1999.
Such electoral chicanery led to seven more off-cycle governorship states—Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Kogi, Ondo, Osun, and Imo. The damage caused by electoral fraud is immeasurable.
Anambra, therefore, presents not just a ballot but a barometer. The contest pits incumbent Chukwuma Soludo against a field including Andy Uba and Valentine Ozigbo.
Amupitan’s visit to Awka on Monday, where he facilitated a peace accord among 18 parties, signals his intent: non-violence and respect for the outcome in an election free of manipulation.
But intent is fleeting; execution is eternal. Anambra’s election demands that Amupitan deploy adequate ad hoc staff, full security personnel, and biometric verification equipment to ensure no vote disappears.
Failure here—a single collation controversy or BVAS glitch—would tarnish his honeymoon and revive the spectre of 2023’s nationwide distrust.
Success, conversely, could set a precedent: a clean Anambra proving that off-season polls need not be off-script debacles.
Amupitan must erase INEC’s historical stain. For decades, the commission has been complicit in—or powerless against—a parade of electoral atrocities: hired thugs attacking polling centers, ballot snatching and incineration under the indifferent gaze of security agents, inflated votes, and losers declared victors in midnight declarations.
Nigerians remember the 2019 Kogi inferno, where collation centers became combat zones; or the 2023 Rivers melee, where results were “suspended” like errant schoolboys.
Only Attahiru Jega, the INEC chief from 2010 to 2015, dared flirt with redemption, but his achievements were largely credited to Jonathan’s temperate concession—a rarity in Nigeria’s zero-sum politics. Amupitan must slay this electoral beast.
Technology—the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System for biometric scans and the INEC Result Viewing Portal for real-time uploads—must not be optional but ironclad mandates embedded in the electoral law and the Constitution.
In Anambra, where internet penetration lags at 45 per cent, contingency plans for transmission are non-negotiable; BVAS failures must not recur.
Yet, Amupitan’s position is precarious. Appointed by President Bola Tinubu, himself a 2027 contender, the chairman faces an overwhelming challenge.
Predecessors like Maurice Iwu (2007) and Yakubu (2015-2025) wilted under executive pressure, their tenures marked by whispers of Aso Rock vetoes.
Amupitan must summon courage and resist the pull of patronage that felled them. This means insulating INEC’s budget from National Assembly horse-trading, empowering resident electoral commissioners as bulwarks, not puppets. State RECs must elevate their vigilance. In Anambra, the Awka REC’s oversight will be dissected like a laboratory specimen.
Compliance with the 2022 Electoral Act is sacrosanct, but Amupitan cannot stop at mere adherence; he must champion reforms to fortify it.
The BVAS transmission and party agent accreditation must be legalised.
Gaps abound, though. The nebulous “substantial compliance” clause is often exploited by the courts. There is no Diaspora voting yet, and penalties for disruptions are lax. Amupitan should lobby the parliament for amendments, including independent candidacy. Collation center chicanery must be criminalized. Live-streamed result uploads are non-negotiable.
Winners must emerge from polling units, not the collation centers, where 2023’s “technical glitches” masked manual machinations. Real-time IREV dashboards must be glitch-proof, and victors can be declared on Election Day, just as the world witnessed in the November 5 polls in the United States.
However, there is a deeper malaise: voter apathy, Nigeria’s silent insurrection. Voters are shunning the polls.
In the 2023 elections, only 26.72% of 94.74 million registered voters cast their ballots, an eight-percentage-point drop from the 34.74% turnout in 2019. After the 2023 polls, Nigeria ranked poorly in voter turnout globally, placing behind war-torn Afghanistan and Libya, according to Picodi.
The voter turnout in the Anambra governorship election four years ago was a mere 10%. For Africa’s most populous country, this is not only bad optics, it is also a failure of democracy. If polls remain tainted, the figures will nosedive in subsequent elections.
Low turnout is not laziness; it is a vote of no confidence in governance that prioritizes cabals over constituencies. Amupitan’s solution lies in flawless elections, which will summon the prodigal voters back home.
A credible poll in Anambra could signal revival not just in the state but countrywide.
No to vote buying must be Amupitan’s battle cry because even functional BVAS and iREV are useless when the voters are compromised with inducements long before Election Day.
Before the 2023 polls, vote buying was widely documented, perpetrators often shielded by elite complicity.
Amupitan must keep a keen eye on this endemic malfeasance. He needs help from the security agencies, including the self-styled DSS, and the judiciary.
Perpetrators must be vigorously prosecuted and deterred with stiff punishment, including asset forfeitures and long jail sentences. They could be named and shamed in the papers and broadcast on the electronic media. No slaps on the wrist.
Innovation beckons, too. Early voting for essential workers and mail-in ballots for the Diaspora could swell registers by up to 10 million.
Ultimately, squeaky-clean elections under Amupitan would lead to credible governance and inspire the country’s rebirth.
Untainted mandates could yield policies that harness Nigeria’s youth prowess, not suppress it. No more states should descend into off-cycle polls. Amupitan’s date with history is no dalliance—it is a duel he must win, and become the man of destiny his name conjures.