ADC Faults Senate’s Confirmation of Amupitan, IPAC Defends Yakubu’s Tenure

Chuks Okocha and Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The spokesperson of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, has said Senate’s confirmation of Joash Amupitan as Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was a mere formality.

Speaking on a television programme, Abdullahi said the pattern of approvals by the 10th Senate showed that “whatever the president wants, the president gets”.

However, Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) commended the immediate past Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, for contributing to the reform of the country’s electoral system through massive introduction of technology. IPAC Chairman, Yusuf Dantalle, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja at a colloquium on Yakubu’s 10 years as Chairman of INEC.

Amupitan was confirmed by the senate after over two hours of questioning on October 16.

But the national publicity secretary of ADC said, “In all due respect to the National Assembly, we have learnt over time that the Senate confirmation especially this Senate has declared that whatever the president wants, the president gets.

“So, I think it’s just formality that Amupitan goes to the Senate to be screened. It’s because it’s required, that’s why it’s done. There’s no way he would have been turned back for any reason whatsoever.”

However, Abdullahi stated that ADC was willing to give the new INEC chairman a fair chance to deliver on his promises, but emphasised that Nigeria’s electoral challenges were rooted in the “human factor,” not the absence of infrastructure or technology.

In a related development, IPAC applauded Yakubu for his contribution to reforming Nigeria’s electoral system through the massive introduction of technology.

It added that the technologies that were introduced by Yakubu were home-grown technologies, built in-house by staff of the commission.

IPAC explained that there were no technological innovations introduced by Yakubu that had no input and acceptability from political parties and civil society organisaions and all the stakeholders.

IPAC Chairman, Dantalle, said the votes of Nigerians counted during the general election, despite voter apathy. He added that with the technological innovations introduced by the Yakubu leadership, it became difficult for political parties to manipulate the system through the use of fake voter cards, while also ensuring that only registered voters participated

Dantalle stated at the colloquium, “In the past, votes were manufactured, results were announced and you have 20 something million, 30 something million. Professor Mahmood was to first clean the voter’s register using technology and now, you cannot have more than one person on the register.

“The name you have here, if you go to Bayelsa, is the same person if you go to Akwa Ibom. So with that process, the voter’s list was cleaned up. There you have the underage voters that we used to have.”

Dantalle added, “We have seen fake PVCs that were produced and being thrown in the gutter, we saw it and we brought it. But it was not from INEC and those PVCs could not pass the test of BVAS because we’re fake. That was because of the technology introduced under the leadership of Professor Mahmood.

“So, when the election was conducted in 2023, people complained about voter apathy. But the truth is that even though there was voter apathy, votes were no longer being manufactured by politicians.

“The votes you saw during the election are the actual votes from Nigerians and nobody could vote more than once.”