Ambassador list: Who is the new INEC chair working for?

Adelakun Abimbola

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Now that the names of ambassadorial appointment nominees include the immediate past Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, it has become pertinent to ask the newly appointed successor, Prof. Joash Amupitan, where his loyalties lie. Does he take his appointment as an opportunity to entrench Nigeria’s democracy, or is he working for the President who appointed him and will possibly reward him with a “juicy” appointment at the end of his tenure? It will not be a bad idea to know at this point whether his tenure at INEC is just another opportunity for him to serve the will of the same regressive forces that have commandeered Nigerian democracy for their purposes, or if he is there to genuinely facilitate a free and fair process. No, it is not an unfair question to ask him simply because his predecessor and the President lack a sense of propriety. Knowing what we are dealing with beforehand will save us stress, grief, and crucially, hard-earned resources in 2027.

In a country that takes itself seriously, the beneficiary of a flawed election conducted by Yakubu is “rewarding” him with an appointment would be a scandal. But Nigeria has long gone past the age of shame, its institutional ethics breached too frequently for this to matter. The current administration has become so unethical that it does not even seem to give its decisions a thought anymore. Was it not long ago that the same Tinubu pardoned mostly drug traffickers, kidnappers, and even a homicidal woman who had not paid her debt to society? It took some public outrage for the administration to rescind its injudicious decision. One would think their subsequent decisions would be properly thought out, but here we are again with another shady appointment that makes a joke of the institutional autonomy INEC is supposed to maintain. What does it say about Yakoob’s detachment from the outcome of the shoddy election he conducted if he is being compensated with a political appointment so shortly after his tenure?

Since the list of Bola Tinubu’s ambassadors was released, Nigerians have rightly expressed outrage and disappointment at the thoughtlessness of appointing people without the right pedigree as the country’s representatives in a crucial sphere like international diplomacy. But then, it is not so strange that in a country where a man with a foggy personal history (including a drug crime) can be president and another person with a mile-long corruption cases with the EFCC is Senate president, the ambassador list is composed of clowns and stooges. When you have leaders who themselves personify our society’s warped moral values, it is a waste of time to expect them to enforce standards. Muhammadu Buhari even appointed a genocidist as an ambassador.

For someone whose presidential candidacy was promoted as “the headhunter” and was reputed to possess the necessary savviness to seek out those among us who have sincerely invested efforts into their preparations to take future leadership roles, Bola Tinubu somehow manages to find the best of the worst of us. Take someone like Reno Omokri, who came into public recognition as “Wendel Simlin”, the fictitious identity the clown assumed so he could lob accusations he was not bold enough to substantiate. Since then, Omokri has had an interesting political career that ranged from being a loud-mouthed misogynist to exploiting the misfortune of Leah Sharibu. When none of those paid enough, he started campaigning against Tinubu. Now, if there is something that Tinubu is adept at recognising better than anyone, it is hunger-driven activism. He has been in politics long enough to know how people act when they need to be noticed. Omokri’s notoriety made him a fit candidate for recruitment into the Tinubu political plantation, where men toil until their souls are drained of any virtue. By the time they exit—for the handful who eventually do anyway—they are so spent that there are virtually no professional options for them.

Their loyalty becomes permanent due to a lack of choice.

Omokri, acting as if his appointment is a surprise and not what he has been auditioning for all the while that he has been putting on elaborate costumes and jumping from one television screen to another, said Tinubu’s forgiveness of the uncouth things he had previously said about him was “Christlike”. Now, that would have been hilarious if it were not tantamount to blasphemy. Jesus Christ did not forgive his opponents because he suffered from a psychological complex that needed to possess everything, including the souls of men. Tinubu does not “forgive” as much as he makes his critics an example of his ability to buy over people’s individuality. The likes of Omokri are effective proof that he can make men heel before him and, with the same mouth they used to insult him, also brush the floor in front of him. You can be a radical with even a Nobel Prize, but Tinubu will figure out your price and co-opt your essence. Some of it is perhaps insecurity on his part, or how do we explain the tendency for those who criticise him publicly to be invited to Aso Rock for a photo-op and properly disarmed, turn into his evangelisers?

That this man knows no limit in his obsession to take over everything and everyone everywhere is a good enough reason to know what is ahead of us in the 2027 election (which is coming up in less than 18 months). If, for Amupitan, this appointment is an audition for the next stage of his professional career as an ambassador or whatever benefit is in store for him, he should spare us the hassle of wasting time and money on an election with a predetermined outcome. Do not be like Yakubu, who budgeted N305bn for the 2023 election. Out of this, N117.1bn was earmarked for the IRES and BVAS technologies, which spectacularly failed to deliver. That was money Nigeria could barely afford yet expended on a process that barely worked. If that money had been invested in our education and healthcare, we would at least have known some momentary progress. Where men have honour, that level of failure is enough to make someone commit hara-kiri. In Nigeria, failure is no shame since there are no set expectations of success. Rather than being punished for failure, you get rehabilitated with a higher appointment.

If Amupitan sees his current appointment as an opportunity to secure his post-INEC future, he should spare us similar frivolous waste of resources. He should be gracious enough not to take us through another pretend process. I am sorry that his integrity has come under scrutiny for no fault of his own, but if the man who appointed him can shamelessly reward his predecessor (whom he did not even appoint), who superintended the election that brought Tinubu to power, then it prefigures the expectation Amupitan would be expected to meet in his role as INEC chair. It is not Amupitan’s fault that the President’s lack of discretion and disregard for optics in his administrative conduct reflect badly on him, but he is unfortunately implicated in Tinubu’s suspect motives by virtue of being his appointee. That is why this is a plea to him to spare us the rigmarole, the emotional roller-coaster, and the massive expenditure for the rituals of electoral contests that will end up before the judges who will also fritter away endless hours reading prefabricated judgments on live television.

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