INEC: The Yakubu Years In Review

Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the longest serving president of the electoral body, bowed retired this week arsenic president of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

He was archetypal appointed connected November 9, 2015 for a five-year word of bureau and was reappointed connected November 9, 2020 by the past President Muhammadu Buhari, becoming the archetypal president of the National Election Management Body successful Nigeria to service for 2 consecutive terms.

Yakubu, whose 2nd tenure would person elapsed connected December 9, 2025, announced his departure during a gathering of INEC with states Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) astatine the commission’s office successful Abuja connected Tuesday.

Without uncertainty his 10-year tenure was arsenic eventful arsenic they were tumultuous, packing a dense dose of praise, disapproval and reflection.

Handing implicit the mantle of INEC enactment connected Tuesday to a National Commissioner, Ms May Agbamuche-Mbu, who took implicit arsenic acting chairman, said his exit would besides alteration the idiosyncratic taking implicit to rapidly settee down to the task of conducting elections and electoral activities.

Yakubu expressed appreciation to members of the committee and RECs for the fantabulous moving narration they shared.

Recalling that helium worked with 24 nationalist commissioners and 67 RECs since helium took implicit successful 2015, helium said helium would everlastingly cherish the enactment of successive secretaries and unit of INEC nationwide.

His Stewardship

For astir 10 years, Professor Yakubu stood astatine the helm of INEC, guiding it done 1 of the astir transformative decades successful its history.

Under his watch, the dates for wide elections and FCT Area Council elections were regularised.

Thus, the wide predetermination present holds connected the 3rd Saturday successful February of the predetermination twelvemonth for the Presidential and National Assembly elections, and 2 weeks aboriginal for the Governorship and State

Assembly elections. This has made it imaginable for each stakeholders to program good up of clip and guarantee amended coordination and readiness by the commission.

The Yakubu-led committee built a much efficient, broad and predictive EMSC dashboard that reports implicit 1,000 predetermination monitoring indicators and integrates each the Commission’s

election monitoring tools comprising the Election Management System (EMS), the Election Operation Support Centre (EOSC), the Electoral Risk Management Tool (ERM) and the INEC Security Alert and Notification System.

After galore years of challenges of bureau accommodation, the Commission office volition soon person a caller 7-storey gathering other the contiguous determination connected Zambezi Crescent, Maitama, Abuja. This is successful summation to the gathering of State Collation Centres.

Technological Advancements

The Yakubu Commission introduced respective technological tools that transformed predetermination medication successful Nigeria. Among them are a caller procreation INEC Voter Enrollment Device (IVED), a caller Biometric Voter Accreditation Device (BVAS), online

portals for managing campaigner nomination, arsenic good arsenic for accreditation of enactment agents, predetermination observers and the media and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

Also, INEC successful the play nether reappraisal with enactment from the European Union Support for Democratic Governance successful Nigeria (EU-SDGN) Project, managed by Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI) developed 8 technology-based tools to amended electoral administration. Similarly For the archetypal clip successful Africa, INEC took the pb successful adopting AI successful Election Management by creating a Division connected AI and Election successful the ICT Department.

Post Election Reviews Meetings

Professor Yakubu continued and expanded the signifier of conducting a broad reappraisal aft each General Election to larn lessons for aboriginal improvements of the electoral process

Voters Registration And Online Pre-Registration Portal

The Yakubu Commission inaugurated and institutionalised the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) astatine LGA and different designated centres successful April 2017, resulting successful the registration of 14,283,734 and 9,518,188 caller voters for the 2019 and 2023 General Elections, respectively.

The Yakubu-led committee introduced vastly improved Direct Data Capture Machines (DDCMs) with much businesslike information capturing capabilities, particularly for fingerprint capture, which was a large situation to the erstwhile DDCM.

Later, the bulky DDCM was replaced by a much portable and businesslike INEC Voter Enrollment Device (IVED), which improved elector verification done fingerprint and facial recognition.

For the archetypal clip successful the CVR Exercise, an Online Portal, was introduced nether his tenure, which allows for pre-registration, transfer, updates connected details, and requests for replacement of a damaged, defaced oregon faded PVC by citizens.

There was besides the deploy...