Open Letter to Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN, New INEC Chairman
Following Senate confirmation, a call for reform and renewal at Nigeria's electoral commission
By John Onyeukwu
Professor Amupitan,
Congratulations on your confirmation by the Senate as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Your unanimous endorsement, after a rigorous three-hour screening in the Committee of the Whole, reflects both confidence in your competence and the national urgency of restoring trust in Nigeria's electoral architecture. The task before you is historic, and daunting.
You assume leadership of INEC at a defining moment. The institution you now head stands at the intersection of law, politics, and legitimacy; its reputation battered, yet redeemable. During your screening, you rightly emphasized the need to clarify the role of technology in elections and promised a comprehensive audit of INEC's systems. That audit will be your first credibility test, not just of technology, but of transparency and institutional memory.
Your predecessor, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, leaves behind a mixed legacy: administrative innovations shadowed by operational lapses and rhetorical fatalism. His oft-quoted reference to Nigeria as "Africa's most demographically and logistically complex environment" became both a descriptor and a defence. Your task is to end that era of eloquent excuses. Complexity must no longer be the anthem of inaction.
Do not fall into the politics of lamentation. Resist the temptation to narrate Nigeria's size or diversity as destiny. Do not confuse optics for substance; symbolic gestures cannot replace institutional discipline. Do not permit opacity or selective enforcement within INEC. Integrity begins with internal accountability. Do not treat elections as metaphysical ordeals; approach them as design and logistics challenges. And do not waste your tenure maintaining structures that need transformation. Boldness, not balance, will define your legacy.
Institutionalize humility and feedback. Open INEC to public audit and civil society collaboration. Set measurable operational benchmarks, on voter registration, logistics delivery, and dispute resolution, and publish the results.
Rebuild subnational capacity so INEC's credibility radiates from local to national levels.
And when failures occur, explain them candidly. Credibility is not perfection; it is transparent correction.
The forthcoming Anambra Governorship Election and the 2026 FCT Area Council polls will be your earliest opportunities to demonstrate a new INEC, one defined by readiness, not rhetoric.
Professor, the Senate has confirmed you; history will now test you. Your leadership will be judged not by how well you narrate Nigeria's challenges but by how decisively you reduce them. May your tenure mark the end of eloquent fatalism and the beginning of institutional efficacy. May the votes henceforth count, not only because the law demands it, but because INEC finally delivers it.
In expectation of progress,
John Onyeukwu
John Onyeukwu is a lawyer, governance consultant, and social impact practitioner.
http://www.policy.hu/onyeukwu/
"Let us move forward to fight poverty, to establish equity, and assure peace for the next generation."
-- James D. Wolfensohn
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