Welcoming Prof Amupitan to the INEC hot seat
Last Friday, I watched the Senate screening of Professor Joash Amupitan with a mild sense of déjà vu. The professor was nominated to fill the vacant post of Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). I wasn’t expecting anything dramatic, as this Senate and the executive have been working hand in glove, and one […]
Last Friday, I watched the Senate screening of Professor Joash Amupitan with a mild sense of déjà vu. The professor was nominated to fill the vacant post of Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). I wasn’t expecting anything dramatic, as this Senate and the executive have been working hand in glove, and one would not expect them to truncate the nomination. Nevertheless, the senators put some hard questions to Prof Amupitan, and as expected, he answered brilliantly. It was a well-choreographed event which produced the expected result. At the end, the Senate President didn’t even need to count the votes; loud ayes confirmed Prof Amupitan as the next INEC Chairman.
When President Tinubu proposed Prof Amupitan as the new INEC Chairman, what immediately caught the eye was that the president had deemed it convenient to relinquish the post to the region away from his own, as President Goodluck Jonathan did in 2010, when he appointed Professor Attahiru Jega to replace Professor Maurice Iwu. It’s a pity that when Prof Jega’s tenure ended in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari jettisoned that formula and decided to appoint his successor, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, from his home region. As a result, the appointment didn’t sit well with the public and was criticised initially. In the long run, it was only the even-handed performance of Professor Yakubu that overturned the initial misgivings about his appointment.
Prof Amupitan came to the INEC chair with rich credentials. Though born and raised in Kogi State, he lived most of his adult life in Jos. He is a thoroughbred product of the University of Jos (UniJos), having earned most of his academic credentials from there. He studied law there and graduated with an LLB in 1987. After his sojourn in Law School and his call to the Bar, he returned to the university in 1989 and joined his department as an academic. In due course, he earned the LL.M. and the PhD and rose to become a professor.
He went through the mills, teaching and researching, producing learned articles for journals and writing books. For administrative experience, Amupitan headed his department, then became dean of the faculty and rose to the post of Deputy Vice Chancellor of the university. His peers in the learned profession recognised him as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
By a curious coincidence, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, who is handing over to Professor Amupitan, also began his academic career in 1986 at the University of Jos. Born and raised in Bauchi State, Yakubu toed the teaching line early in life. He attended the Teachers College, Toro, and proceeded to Sokoto University, where he garnered a first-class degree in history. He is reputed to be the first to have a first-class degree in history from the northern part of the country. He joined UniJos as an academic from 1986 to 1992, and during this period, attended Cambridge University and Oxford University, both in the United Kingdom, for M.Phil. and PhD, respectively.
He thereafter moved to the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna, where he served as Head of the Department of History, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, and Dean of the Postgraduate School. As an academic, Yakubu had a pedigree, having published well-regarded books, such as Sa’adu Zungur: An Anthology of the Social and Political Writings of a Nigerian Nationalist and Emirs and Politicians; Reform, Reaction and Recriminations in Northern Nigeria 1950-1966, among others. On many instances, on this page, I have had occasions to make references to Emirs and Politicians, a book that I have found to be unsurpassed in dealing with the intricate and testy relationship between the two antagonists of that period, which still reverberates today.
Prof Yakubu gained further public exposure when he was appointed as the Secretary of the Education Trust Fund (ETF), the precursor of the present-day Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND). Shortly after leaving TETFUND, he was named INEC Chairman in 2015. By the time he left INEC, Mahmood Yakubu had served a record of 10 years. His tenure, though long, had been relatively quiet without the hullabaloo that had characterised tenures of past INEC Chairmen. We must admit that Prof Yakubu has been an achiever at INEC, especially by the deployment of technology to solve long-standing credibility problems associated with elections. In particular, the introduction of BVAS and IREV has enhanced confidence in election results and boosted trust in the outcomes of the election more than at any time in the past.
Prof Amupitan will be expected to build on what has so far been achieved in INEC. This much is what he had pledged to the senators during the screening exercise. The great lawyer that he is, I am not surprised that he never shied away from giving a direct answer to each question posed by the senators, even when the query challenged his integrity. When Senator Seriake Dickson asked him to respond to the rumour that during the last presidential election, he was part of the Tinubu defence team at the courts, Prof Amiputan gave a robust reply, challenging any interested party to check the 2023 Law Report and see whether his name was listed among the lawyers in that suit.
Professor Joash Amiputan, welcome to the INEC hot seat.