By Olalekan Victor
Professor Mahmoud Yakubu the current Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is a clever scam artist seeking re-appointment desperately.
Less than two months to the end of his tenure, he wants to sell Nigerians another pie-in-the-sky after shutting down and declaiming the INEC Server he spent Billions of Naira on and then retreated from it, in order to fraudulently distort the result of the 2019 Presidential Election, Prof. Jega would not have chicken out as a man of conviction and courage to do the right thing. But Prof.Yakubu betrayed Nigerians big time and the public does not trust him to chair the election management body anymore. He should be stopped from this embarrassing subtle campaign for re-appointment. Prof. Jega did just a term and left behind a hopeful legacy of trust and confidence in the Electoral process that Prof. Yakubu has destroyed.
He may believe he has a chance to sell his new scam for re-appointment because he thinks Nigerians have forgotten so soon and moved on from the most egregious betrayal of Trust he committed against the Nigerian people. No. We have not forgot how he almost denied conducting the 2019 election while trying to deny the existence of Central Server. He has lost public confidence to preside over INEC and the 2023 election.
Nigerians who felt betrayed by his denial of the existence of an IT Server are want to ask Prof Yakubu and his fellows some questions and will like to know the following:
When Prof Jega left INEC in 2015, the use of Card Readers authentication for finger verification before a voter was allowed to have access to ballot to avoid fraud and prevent those who stockpiled PVCs from using them was over 54% of voters during the 2015 elections. How come Prof Yakubu mismanaged this innovation that brought President Buhari to power that is now reduced to less than 19% performance of biometrics authentication in the 2019 election, which means that people voted without their fingers verified as true owners of those PVCs with the worst performance in the more recent elections of Kogi and Bayelsa states, where Card Readers were not used for finger verification according to INEC Ad hoc Staff who participated in those elections? Prof. Yakubu uninspiring leadership of INEC has not improved significantly on any of what Prof. Jega introduced like the Card Reader performance that should have been increasing in figure above 70% by now. Why should Prof. Yakubu and his team expect Nigerians to trust them with a second term re- appointment?
Is it not true that he has been systematically superintending over the decline of the Card Reader and embracing results from one Arena of Grand-Theft Elections to another?
Can Professor Yakubu and his National Commissioners Team deny that they bought zPads as well as installed costly IT Equipment with which they promised to transmit Election results during the 2019 General Elections? What happened that forced them to drop the data from the huge IT investment? Is it Pressure from Amina Zakari's family? What will prevent such scam again when using E-voting?
Did Prof Yakubu and his colleagues not accept funds from International Donors, including the European Union to train a category of staff they called RATECH to facilitate the transmission of results and other field data from INEC state offices only to deny using these facilities, just to make his scam with the server stick?
Does Prof Yakubu and his leadership think that Nigerians have forgotten the shame of several inconclusive elections he subjected the nation to since 2016 when he took over as chairman and the tragedy of the 2019 elections ?
Does he realise that he no longer commands the confidence of the electorate in Nigeria as well as the respect and trust of International Donors?
Prof. Yakubu speaks of punishment of electoral offenders when its convenient to him since 2019 election but no offenders have been arraigned in court of law.
What makes Prof Yakubu think that he can deceive Nigerians in his quest for re-appointment by trying to sell another chimera in the name of Electronic Voting, another fantasy to Nigerians?
Does he think that Nigerians are ready to listen to this Electronic voting Re-appointment campaign jingle?
Is it not a fact that Prof. Yakubu and his National Commissioners almost shelved the ICT that was used to transmit election results from Polling Units in the Edo State Election, only to allow it at the last minute when instructions from "Above" were received to ensure the defeat and disgrace of some national leaders of a Political Party ? Why did he dropped the use of z-Pad for authentication in Edo and allowed a Rec totally lacking of legal and moral authority having been a member of PDP at one time and now a member of APC to preside over Edo election when he has power to redeploy him to another state ? But for media exposure and public outcry both Edo and Ondo elections are to be used as quid pro quo for second term re-appointment.
Will INEC allow the same ICT result transmission in Edo to succeed in Ondo?
Does the Constitution not empower INEC to decide how Elections should be conducted, but did Prof Yakubu not use his own whim to repudiate and abdicate that power when he declared that INEC had no enabling Law for using electronic transmission of results, just to hide the INEC server? Where did he get the power to use it in Nasarawa and Edo states?
Prof Yakubu and his re-appointment-seeking colleagues launched a public jamboree to invite everyone to witness the demonstrations of e-Voting equipment. Is that not a process that the User Departments in INEC ought to have concluded before bringing it before the public? Must this be used as a campaign for second term re-appointment ? Why issue a press statement to Nigerians even a day after the launch of a re-appointment campaign jamboree, repeating what had been said before that more vendors would be coming to make presentations ?
When did Prof Yakubu and colleagues invite the public to witness the testing of zPads, Result Transmission Servers etc?
This is the first time in the history of Nigeria that a sitting Chairman of INEC and his team of national commissioners would embark on a full scale re-appointment public campaign under the guise of E-voting to hoodwink Nigerians. Why should people be allowed to campaign for such a sensitive office of an election umpire? In decent countries, such a move attracts automatic disqualification because engaging politicians to secure such offices would involve making partisan commitments and promises.
Please Prof Yakubu please, sell your dreamscape to the gullible. It will not fly this time ! Nigerians have no confidence in you and a re-appointment would spell doom for the 2023 election and President Muhammadu Buhari would have left no enduring legacy unlike his predecessor if he reappoints you.
Olalekan Victor, writes from Abuja
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