INEC: Joash Ojo Amupitan; A New Story or the Same Old Tale?

INEC: Joash Ojo Amupitan; A New Story or the Same Old Tale?

(By Citizen Bolaji O. Akinyemi)

Between Yakubu and What Comes Next

Before the curtain falls on Professor Mahmood Yakubu’s tenure, Nigeria must confront the truth that our electoral crisis was never about one man. For decades, our democracy has been trapped in a structure that rewards manipulation and punishes integrity. Each new INEC chairman — professor, Muslim, or Christian — has inherited a hoe bent toward the interests of those who appointed him. The Yoruba say, “Ti a ba fun wèrè ní loko, ó d’ò ara ẹ ni à ròkò sí” — give a madman a hoe, and he will till toward himself.

The system, not the steward, is our problem. The 2023 polls merely dramatized what we already knew: without structural reform, every election will end in the courts, every mandate will be questioned, and every government will lack legitimacy.

Yakubu’s years at INEC revealed both the promise and the peril of electoral administration under executive control. His BVAS and IReV innovations rekindled hope, yet the opaque transmission and selective compliance shattered public trust. Now, as whispers grow about his early exit, Nigeria must resist another sentimental rotation of personnel and insist on genuine institutional redesign.

Power over INEC appointments must move beyond the presidency’s reach, and transparency must become law, not discretion. The next chairman — Amupitan — will inherit the same broken hoe unless we straighten it now.

This is our transition moment: from personalities to principles, from excuses to engineering. The question is no longer who chairs INEC, but what INEC becomes.

Amupitan: The Test Before the Turning Point

Every season in Nigeria’s democracy throws up a name — not necessarily the most competent, but the most convenient. Recent murmurs within the corridors of power have become the news; Amupitan has surfaced as the next name in Nigeria’s electoral journey. But before we hurry to hail or hate him, we must pause and ask: What system will he inherit, and who will he serve?

For decades, every INEC chairman has entered the same burning house with a new broom, only to discover that the fire was not in the ashes of the last election but in the foundation of the institution itself. If Amupitan becomes the next tenant in that house without changing the architecture, he too will end up sweeping smoke.

This is why his coming must not be treated as another appointment, but as a national test — the test of whether President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will rise above partisan instincts and become the statesman who delivers to Nigeria a truly independent electoral body.

The challenge before Amupitan, if he is confirmed by the Senate, will not be the perfection of logistics or technology but the sanctification of trust. Can Nigerians, for once, go to the polls without fear that results will be rewritten between collation centers and courtrooms?

The Yoruba say, “Ọba tí kì í fọwọ́ mú òtítọ́, a fi ẹ̀sìn ṣeré” — the king who won’t handle truth with his hands will play religion with his feet. Nigeria has played too long with faith in her democracy. The appointment of Amupitan must mark a departure from old habits — or 2027 will meet us, not with renewed hope, but with the ashes of another electoral funeral.

Amupitan and the Burden of Legacy

Every president is remembered, not for how many roads he built or appointments he made, but for the institutions he strengthened — or destroyed. For President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the appointment of Amupitan as the new INEC Chairman will not just be an administrative decision; it will be the defining test of his Renewed Hope mantra.

Now that Amupitan is the choice, history will not ask whether he is Yoruba from Kogi in the North Central, Christian or Muslim, professor or politician. History will ask whether his emergence marked the rebirth of an independent electoral institution or the recycling of political puppetry.

In truth, Tinubu’s presidency faces two roads: one leads to the statesman’s immortality, the other to political infamy. The first requires him to separate party interest from national interest, to resist the temptation of rigging the 2027 game before it begins. The other path — the path of control, manipulation, and executive capture of INEC — will turn 2027 into a democratic doomsday.

Amupitan therefore stands as a mirror — not just of Tinubu’s conscience but of Nigeria’s capacity for reform. If he is truly independent, it will show that Tinubu is ready to rebuild the moral foundation of leadership. But if he is another partisan placeholder, it will confirm that Nigeria has learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.

The stakes could not be higher. The same system that produced Yakubu’s frustrations must not swallow Amupitan’s future. Nigeria is bleeding from the wounds of stolen mandates and silenced voices. The next INEC must not just conduct elections; it must restore faith.

A Charge to Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan

I urge you, Amupitan, never to seek fraud in tribe, nor let it sneak past you in sentiment. Your name — Joash, “God has given” — carries the burden of divine trust; Ojo, the daring soul born with the cord of destiny; and Amupitan, the man sent to change our story. Rise to the mission. Be the fear of corrupt politicians and the joy of the people. May your tenure end as Amupitan rere — the good restorer of Nigeria — whose legacy of justice will outlive your time, your children, and your children’s children.

2027: Between Reformation and Ruin

Every election cycle in Nigeria reopens the same wound: a people desperate for change, and a system determined to resist it. But 2027 will not be another date on the political calendar — it will be a referendum on our collective sanity.

If we dare to enter that year with the same broken system that mocked the will of voters in 2023, then we are simply scheduling another funeral for democracy. The signs are already there: voter apathy growing into disbelief, judiciary reduced to arithmetic, and political elites converting public offices into private estates. What began as a constitutional crisis has now become a crisis of faith.

Yet, hope still whispers. The reform of our electoral system can still redeem the Republic. If Tinubu seizes this moment — not as a partisan general, but as a constitutional reformer — history will remember him as the man who saved Nigeria’s democracy from itself. The same constitution that empowers him to appoint an INEC Chairman also gives him the chance to rise above that power. To restrain himself is to reform the nation.

We must understand: no democracy survives long where the votes of citizens are weaker than the whims of politicians. The time to act is now — not after another rigged election, not after another street protest, not after another judicial tragedy.

The Yoruba say, “A kii fi ọwọ́ otun dá’gi, ká má f’ọwọ́ òsì gbe e” — you cannot break a tree with the right hand and raise it with the left. For democracy to stand, both the leaders and the led must uphold it.

2027 stands before us like a judgment seat. We can choose reformation — and live. Or choose ruin — and bury what remains of our Republic. The hoe is ready; may we till straight this time.

Dr. Bolaji O. Akinyemi is an Apostle and Nation Builder. He’s also President Voice of His Word Ministries and Convener Apostolic Round Table. BoT Chairman, Project Victory Call Initiative, AKA PVC Naija. He is a strategic Communicator and the C.E.O, Masterbuilder Communications.

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