Mahmood Yakubu: Walking a Tight Rope

Fri, Feb 22, 2019 | By publisher


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Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, is not a famous figure among the Nigerian politicians for now, especially since he rescheduled the date of general elections, but he appears unrelenting in his determination to hold credible polls 

By Olu Ojewale

MAHMOOD Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has intimidating credentials. He is an academic, a guerrilla war specialist, a seasoned administrator and a professor of History. All these must have equipped him for the onerous task of being appointed by President Muhammadu as the chairman of the commission on October 21 2015, succeeding Amina Zakari, who served as acting chairman.

But in the past one week, Yakubu has been in the eye of the storm for daring to postpone the much awaited presidential and federal legislative elections few hours before Nigerians were to go to the polls. This angered a lot Nigerians and made him a target of condemnation and abuse.

Since he adjusted the election timetable from February 16 and March 2, to February 23 and March 9, Yakubu and his team appear to be having sleepless nights because of various allegations and suspicion that the INEC chair has been compromised and he is working towards enthroning a preferred candidate as president.

Oshimhole

This has also made the INEC chair’s work difficult as he seems to be walking a tight rope because of the suspicion of politicians and Nigerian electorate, who accused him of postponing the election to give room for rigging.

To dispel the misgiving, the INEC boss has made it a daily routine to brief political stakeholders, the media, and members of the international community on the progress made by the commission and to assure them that he will be an unbiased umpire.

Amidst fears that the new date for the election will be shifted again, on Wednesday, February 20, Yakubu, while addressing a cross-section of the diplomatic community and international election monitoring groups for the 2019 general elections said emphatically that “only an Act of God” can stop the conduct of the rescheduled presidential and National Assembly elections slated for Saturday, February 23.

The briefing which was organised by the ministry of foreign affairs in conjunction with INEC, aimed at engaging with friends and partners of Nigeria on the rescheduled election.

Yakubu, who was represented by Mustapha Lecky, an INEC national commissioner, said the commission had put in place everything possible to ensure the elections held on Saturday, February 23. He assured that the commission had no reason to feel that anything would stop the conduct of the election on February 23.

The commission similarly announced that the deployment of voting materials to the 774 Local Government Areas of the country would be completed on Thursday, February 21.

The 57-year-old INEC boss equally said that the commission had completed 100 percent the configuration of the Smart Card Readers, SCRs, which will be used for the accreditation of voters on February 23 and March 9, elections.

He also acknowledged that there were reports of missing materials in some states. But he assured that the commission had made good progress in the area of logistics and was good to go. He also said that only accredited diplomats will be allowed to move about as there is restriction on movement.

Notwithstanding the public outcry calling for his sack and resignation, the INEC chairman also assured Nigerians he will not heed such calls as he is posied to conduct the 2019 general elections.

Secondus
Secondus

Also, in Abuja on Thursday, February 21, he said: “Well, I see no reason to even contemplate resigning. There is no reason whatsoever to even contemplate resigning. We’ll stay focused as a commission, we’ll do the job that is there for us to do for our country.

“Well, the last time I checked and that is the situation as we speak, I am the chairman of INEC, Nigeria and constitutionally, the Chief Electoral Commissioner of the Federal Republic and the Returning Officer for the Presidential election. So my status hasn’t changed and I am proceeding on the basis of those powers I draw from the constitution for the position I am privileged to serve for the 2019 general elections.”

Indeed, in the past few days, leaders of various Nigerian political parties have taken turns to bash Yakubu and the commission, accusing them of being compromised. Interestingly, the call for his sack and resignation also came from the two leading parties in the country.

It was Adams Oshimhole, the national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, who threw the first salvo at Yakubu for daring to postpone the elections. The APC chairman said the action did not speak well of the commission under the leadership of Yakubu, asking him to step down.

He similarly accused the INEC of colluding with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to rig elections. On Monday, February 18, at a crucial caucus meeting organised by the ruling party following the postponement of the election, the APC chairman, said: “I can put my hands on the Qur’an and swear that INEC and its officials informed the Peoples Democratic Party before postponing the election. The PDP were well acquainted with the plans to move to the elections. This is why they did not receive the news with shock. They made us look like fools because we were busy preparing for the elections while they were relaxing.”

The APC chair also threatened to compel the commission to reshuffle its top officers ahead of the February 23, elections. However, it appears that the threat was not carried out after all.

Similarly, Uche Secondus, the national chairman of the PDP asked Yakubu to resign as the chairman of the INEC. Through Ike Abonyi, his media aide, shortly after the elections were postponed by INEC on Saturday, February 16, Secondus said his party was rejecting the new dates.

Buhari
Buhari

He said it was a “deliberate, pre-determined agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari to cling on to power even when it’s obvious to him that Nigerians want him out.”

He similarly described the postponement as part of a “grand design” by the APC to thwart the will of Nigerians “at all cost.” He said: “With several of their rigging options failing, they have to force INEC to agree to a shift in the election or a staggered election with flimsy excuses pre-manufactured for the purpose.”

Even then, some persons, including ministers in the Buhari government have demonstrated their support for the brilliant INEC chairman, who holds a record as being the first Nigerian from the North to obtain a first-class degree in certificate in History from the University of Sokoto (now Usmanu Danfodiyo University), in 1985.

For instance, Adebayo Shittu, the minister of Communications, while addressing journalists at his Ibadan residence on Monday, said Oshimhole had no moral right to ask Yakubu to resign because of shifted elections. Shittu argued: “I will not support such call for resignation of the INEC chairman. To err is human. We have not seen any political motivation as to what has happened in INEC.

“If Oshiomhole calls for resignation of the INEC chairman, he should also be preparing to resign as chairman of APC for conducting primaries marred by irregularities, and even accused of corruption in its conduct. Did anybody ask him to resign for the horrible management of primary elections under his watch?”

Besides, Shittu argued that this will be the first general election to be supervised by the university don. “This is the first election that Professor Yakubu would be conducting, so we need to give him the benefit of doubt and I will advise that all the political parties should be vigilant.

“If you bring in another chairman, when does such person begin to learn the process? Or will you on the basis of that call for another rescheduling of the elections? Certainly, it is unacceptable for anyone to ask for resignation of INEC chairman,” the minister said.

Babatunde Raji Fashola, the minister of Power, Works and Housing, who is also the director, Election Monitoring and Planning, who spoke at a news conference in Abuja, on Wednesday, February 20, asked whether asking Yakubu to resign is the solution to delivering a credible election. Fashola said though everyone was disappointed that the elections were shifted, but that should not be enough excuse to dismiss the INEC chairman.

Atiku
Atiku

The minister argued: “If he resigns, will that give us an election? If the person who has been there for four years is having challenges now, who is prepared that will replace him and do what he has not been able to do in three and half years. The party that is thinking that way does not even know how government works. The solution is for all Nigerians to rally round INEC to get it right and that is what we intend to do.”

He, therefore, urged the INEC chairman and his team to work hard to earn the confidence of Nigerians again that they can deliver credible polls.

Prominent among those who, probably will want Yakubu to prove doubters wrong is former President Olusegun Obasanjo, being a virulent critic of the INEC under Yakubu. The former president had in an open letter dated Sunday, January 20, declared that he had no confidence in the ability of the INEC commission to hold free, fair and credible elections. His letter said in part: “I personally have serious doubt about the present INEC’s integrity, impartiality and competence to conduct a fair, free and credible election.”

He used the Osun State election as a yardstick for his suspicion. He said: “From what we saw and knew about Osun State gubernatorial election, what was conclusive was declared inconclusive despite all advice to the contrary.” Thus, he expressed fear that the Osun election might as well be a litmus test that the electoral umpire failed and lamented that the “unnecessary rerun” elections (in Osun). He said, “if viewed as a test-run for a larger general election, it would lead people to expect incidences of deliberately contrived, broken or non-working voting machines or card readers, confusion of voters as to their voting stations, inadequate supply of voting materials to designated places, long line to discourage voters and turning blind eyes to favour the blue-eye political party of INEC because the commission’s hands will be tied to enable hatchet men and women to perform their unwholesome assignment.

“The transmission and collation of results are subject to interference, manipulation and meddling. If the INEC’s favourite political party wins with all the above infractions, the result will be conclusively declared and if not, there will be a ‘rerun’, the result of which is known before it is carried out. I know that I am not alone in being sceptical about the integrity of INEC and its ability to act creditably and above board. But we are open to be convinced otherwise.”

Continuing, the former president said: “A friend of mine who is more credulous and who claims to be close to the chair of INEC keeps telling me that INEC will retrieve its image and reputation by conducting the coming elections with utmost integrity and impartiality.

“I am not sure as I believe more in action than in words and in past record than in promise. The track record of the present INEC is fairly sordid and all men and women of goodwill and believers in democracy must be prepared for the worst from INEC and their encouragers and how to get Nigeria out of the electoral morass that the commission is driving us into.”

Another challenge that is facing Yakubu and the commission is how to handle state elections in Zamfara and Rivers states. Governorship and state legislative elections in the two states are in court without a clear cut idea of  how the court cases, now heading for the Supreme Court, will pan out.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo

Interestingly, at the Realnews lecture in November 15, last year, the INEC chair complained about more than 200 election related court cases that the commission had to contend with.

That notwithstanding, Simon Kolawole, the editor-in-chief of TheCable online newspaper, in his article, “INEC’s Bolt from the Blue” published on Sunday, February 17, said the best way Yakubu could compensate the Nigerian electorate is to organise a transparently free and fair general election. “I agree that he deserves a second chance. After all, Prof. Jega started on a shaky note but ended up on a creditable note. I will not write off Yakubu just yet. But he has to realise that he has dropped the ball. We should be getting better with every election, not going backward. The town is filled with rumours over Yakubu’s motives, with both the ruling party and the opposition accusing him of working for one side or the other. Millions of Nigerians have also suffered economic losses because of this postponement. We deserve much better,” Kolawole wrote.

Notwithstanding all the criticisms against him and the commission, the INEC chairman, said recently: “This is to be expected in an election year when people make all sorts of insinuations but I want to tell you that we, as a commission, have never been under any pressure to do what is wrong.

“We will never compromise our integrity to do what the law says that we shouldn’t and for the 2019 general elections.”

Making a similar commitment while delivering Realnews Magazine’s sixth anniversary lecture last year, Yakubu harped on the need to ensure that Nigerians are able to make their choices without let or hindrance.

The INEC chair, who spoke on the theme: Political Transitions and Africa’s Economic Development, said: “If votes do not count, then of course, the consequential benefits derivable to the electorate would not be possible because elected office holders would not be accountable.”

He argued on the importance of political stability as a major pre-requisite for economic growth and development. Hence, he said in a situation whereby the result of an election is unacceptable to the general public it would lead to instability in the country.

“We have seen nations and cities destroyed by unacceptable electoral outcomes. We have equally seen once happy, contended and thriving people becoming homeless and hopeless in internally displaced persons, IDP camps and forced migration to other countries on account of failed elections. Under such circumstances, no meaningful development can occur. Democratic transition through periodic and credible elections is the best way to ensure certainty that will guarantee and sustain political stability,” he said.

With that statement, Yakubu is expected to ensure that the INEC holds credible polls that will not set the country on fire.

Besides, it is also incumbent on the INEC chair, who is also the president of the five-member board of the 15-nation ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions, ECONEC, that the 2019 elections will be a litmus test for him. Since he was elected to post on March 29, 2017, Yakubu has led the regional electoral body to supervise various elections held in the West African region. Therefore, it behoves on the INEC chair to organise an acceptable general election in Nigeria worthy of emulation by the regional grouping and commended by members of the international community.

Nigerians are not likely to settle for anything less. That’s why it can be safely said that Yakubu is walking a tight rope.

 

Mahmood Yakubu: The Man with the Herculean Task  

 

Mahmood  Yakubu was born in 1962 in May Bauchi State. He started his basic education Kobi Primary School and then attended Teachers’ College, Toro, Bauchi State, from 1975 to 1980, where he obtained the Grade II Teachers’ Certificate in 1980 top of his class. From there, he proceeded to proceeded to the University of Sokoto (now Usmanu Danfodiyo University), from 1980 to 1985, where he became the first Nigerian from the North to obtain a first-class degree certificate in History in 1985, winning the Waziri of Sokoto Prize for the Best Graduating Student.

Following his one year NYSC in 1985/86 as an academic assistant in the Department of History, University of Jos, he enrolled at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom in 1986 with the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholarship and obtained the Master of Philosophy, M.Phil, degree in International Relations in 1987. He then proceeded to the University of Oxford in the same year with the Commonwealth Scholarship and obtained the Doctor of Philosophy, D.Phil, Degree in History in 1991 at the age of 29 years. At Oxford, he was a three-time winner of the Overseas Research Students’ Award of the Committee of Vice Chancellors of United Kingdom Universities and the Beit Fund Research Grant.

After his post-graduate studies, Yakubu returned to the University of Jos in 1992 as Lecturer 1.  In 1993, he moved to the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna as a Senior Lecturer and rose to the rank of Reader in 1995 and professor in 1998. At the NDA, he was head, Department of History from 1994 to 1995, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Director of Academic Planning from 1998 to 2000, Member, Armed Forces Selection Board from 1998 to 2003, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences for a second time from 2002 to 2004, Chairman, Management Board of the Staff School from 2004 to 2006 and pioneer Dean, Post Graduate School in from 2004 to 2006.  He has more than 50 publications to credit.

From 2006 to 2007, Yakubu was the Task Team Leader responsible for tertiary education at the Federal Ministry of Education and a member of Presidential Technical Committee for the consolidation of Federal tertiary institutions. In 2007, he was appointed as the Executive Secretary of the Education Trust Fund, ETF, which later became the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund.

In this position, he served as a member of the Federal Government team on the Renegotiation of the Federal Government Agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, under the chairmanship of Deacon Gamaliel Onosode, now late. He was also member of the Presidential Task Team on Education, the Committee on Presidential Scholarship for Innovation and Development, PRESID, Implementation Committee on the Presidential Fund for the Revitalisation of Nigerian Public Universities, the Ministerial Implementation Committee on the establishment of nine new Federal Universities, the Almajiri Education System and Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Public Universities.

At the expiration of his term at TETFund in 2012, Professor Yakubu had within a period of five years surmounted several challenges to introduce several innovations in the country’s tertiary education system. These innovations include the Academic Staff Training and Development programme, under which over 6,000 lecturers from various Higher Education Institutions were sponsored for postgraduate degree programmes at various Nigerian universities and over 2,000 in Universities overseas; the Special High Impact Intervention Project, directed at the systematic development of the teaching, learning and research facilities in selected HEI, with 20 Universities, 12 Polytechnics and 12 Colleges of Education across the six geo-political zones as beneficiaries; the National Research Fund to enable Nigerian academics undertake advanced research for national development and the National Book Development Fund to support the publication of research findings, as well as the resuscitation of the publication of over 100 HEI-based journals and 18 exceptional doctoral theses.

Yakubu was co-opted in 2013 as a technical member of the Implementation Monitoring Committee, IMC, on the Presidential Special Intervention Fund for the Revitalisation of Nigerian Public Universities and served as the Assistant Secretary in charge of finance and administration during the National Conference in 2014.

He is a Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria and the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations. He delivered the convocation lecture at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife in 2009 and the participated in the Colloquium to mark the 30th Anniversary Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State in 2013. He holds the Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) from the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, as well as the Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) from the Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki and Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma.

– Feb. 22, 2019 @ 18:15 GMT |

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