2027: Amupitan failed to handle considerations surrounding his appointment as INEC chairman – Baba Yusuf

Policy strategist Baba Yusuf has criticised the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Joash Amupitan, saying he didn’t adequately deal with considerations surrounding his appointment by President Bola Tinubu.

Speaking on Arise News, Yusuf expressed disappointment with Amupitan’s dealing with of the controversy, arguing that his place as a Professor of Law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria ought to have positioned him in a greater place to grasp the considerations and take steps to construct public confidence in his management.

He famous that successive administrations, from former President Olusegun Obasanjo to the present administration of President Tinubu, had didn’t reform the method by way of which the President appoints the INEC chairman.

He mentioned he anticipated Amupitan, given his authorized background and popularity for integrity, to display a powerful sense of duty and reassure Nigerians about his impartiality, notably amid allegations and criticisms from some northern political, social and spiritual teams.

Yusuf additional questioned some developments surrounding Amupitan’s emergence, together with actions on his X (previously Twitter) account and the looks of people related to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, round him.

He additionally raised considerations over experiences of alleged hacking of INEC’s server and different controversies that emerged forward of the elections.

Although he acknowledged that Amupitan carried out fairly nicely through the current off-cycle elections below his management, Yusuf maintained that the challenges going through the fee on the nationwide degree required higher consideration.

He particularly criticised the INEC chairman’s engagement with points surrounding Chatham House, arguing that the fee ought to prioritise addressing operational shortcomings and restoring public belief.

Yusuf mentioned the reported synthetic intelligence-related points involving the fee’s servers had additional broken confidence in INEC, including that Nigerians anticipated accountability and decisive motion from its management.

“I expected a house cleaning. I expected heads to roll. I expected responsibility to be held and accountability to show us that this man that everybody is wary of is a man that people should be comfortable with,” he mentioned.

He added that Amupitan wanted to do greater than provide explanations and public statements, insisting that his management ought to deal with rebuilding confidence within the electoral fee.

“As far as I’m concerned, the rhetoric and the narration by Prof. Amupitan should do better than that,” Yusuf acknowledged.

The coverage strategist additional described Amupitan as arguably essentially the most unpopular INEC chairman within the historical past of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, even earlier than conducting a basic election.

He warned that such widespread considerations concerning the head of the electoral fee might undermine public confidence within the establishment forward of future elections.