Olisa Agbakoba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), has requested that President Bola Tinubu remove Mahmoud Yakubu as the head of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Recall that Mahmoud Yakubu was officially named INEC chair by former President Muhammadu Buhari in November 2015 to succeed Attahiru Jega, who oversaw the 2015 general elections. He was reappointed as the head of the election commission in October 2020.
But the senior attorney claimed in a statement on Thursday that the 61-year-old INEC chairman must resign or be removed from office in order to avoid impeding Nigeria’s efforts to implement electoral reform.
Agbakoba praised the President for “getting rid” of Godwin Emefiele as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and AbdulRasheed Bawa as the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in a statement released by his media assistant, Niyi Odunmorayo.
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Agbakoba said, “Full congratulations go to President Tinubu for getting rid of Emefiele and Bawa and fuel subsidy and forex corruption. Endemic corruption has suffered a massive blow.
“Next is for the president to dismantle INEC. Everyone will agree that logistically, the 2023 elections are the worst in our history. I do not refer to the merits of the results of the elections. Many results are disputed and are in Tribunals. Both petitioners and respondents suffered at the hands of an incompetent INEC.
“As we await rulings from the courts massive reforms of the electoral framework ought to begin but this means that the INEC Chairman will have to leave office by resignation or removal, otherwise the reform task will be impeded.
“I add very quickly that the suggested reforms have nothing to do with the merits of election results at all. Both winners and losers of the elections were victims of the failure of INEC. Confidence in Nigeria’s democracy will be enhanced by a deep cleansing of INEC.”
