Hot SourceThe immediate past Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, has admitted that the Commission under his watch from 2015 to 2025, was marred by relentless crises that threatened the credibility of Nigeria’s electoral process, despite reforms and innovations introduced during the period.
Yakubu made this revelation in INEC’s new publication, Election Management in Nigeria: 2015–2025.
He painted a sobering picture of how recurring setbacks – from pre-election litigations and conflicting court rulings to violent attacks on INEC facilities and personnel – consistently undermined the smooth conduct of polls.
According to him, the commission was dragged into thousands of court cases, often receiving contradictory orders from courts of concurrent jurisdiction, creating legal confusion and disrupted preparations for elections.
The former INEC boss equally cited the menace of vote trading, persistent logistical breakdowns that forced nationwide postponements, and targeted violence against election officials as some of the most destabilising problems.
“The 2015–2025 decade was not without its challenges. Conflicting court orders, violence targeted at our staff and facilities, the scourge of vote trading, and persistent logistics bottlenecks continued to test the credibility and smooth conduct of elections,” said Yakubu.
He added that beyond human and legal hurdles, technical failures also dogged INEC’s operations, stressing that equipment breakdowns and network collapses sometimes crippled accreditation and delayed transmission of results, raising public doubts about the reliability of the system.
