Jega: New electoral officers Can do the Job

Former Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega yesterday affirmed that his successor, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, is capable of doing the job.

He hailed President Muhammadu Buhari for picking Yakubu, who was cleared yesterday by the Senate for the position.

Jega was delivering the first University of Abuja Public Lecture Series with the theme: “Electoral Reforms in Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects”

He adjudged the 2007 elections as manifestly the worst in the nation’s history.

The former INEC boss expressed disappointment in  some politicians because of their mindset to electoral process.


He said: “From my experience, I quite often say that Nigeria has a special breed of politicians (Nee: ‘Militicians’). They generally tend to believe that political power through elections has to be ‘captured’ and this has to be done by hook or by crook; and by any means necessary! To them, winning election is, literally, ‘a do-or-die’ affair.”

Jega, who is now at the Department of Political Science, Bayero University, Kano, said the sad development remained a formidable challenge for future electoral reforms.

He said: “As long as politicians continue to have this unwholesome mindset, efforts at electoral reform and deepening democracy would remain constrained.

 “INEC faced perhaps its greatest challenge in containing the predisposition and reckless mindset of Nigerian politicians. Any wonder then, that our political arena increasingly resembled a bloody battlefield, with maiming, killing, burning, and unimaginable destruction of lives and property.”

He added that navigating the “minefield” of “do-or-die” politicians as an impartial electoral umpire required nerves of steel.

“Compliance with the laws and insisting on same and respect for due process, as well as being non-partisan and transparent, helped the commission in navigating this ‘minefield’,” Jega said.

 He advised government to ensure that security plays a wise role in future elections.

The former INEC boss urged the youths to be interested in electoral reforms for a better country.

He advised government to sustain the ongoing reforms in the electoral process and ensure that the players and other stakeholders abide by the rule at all time.