On the 9th of December, 2025, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, a Professor of Political History and International Studies with specialisation in military and political history with emphasis on Nigeria and African political history and revolutionary movements, among others will take a bow after ten years of service to the nation as head of the biggest electoral body on the African continent. In this review, TONY AKOWE examines some of his achievements in the last ten years.
When Prof Mahmood Yakubu was first appointed the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigeria had huge expectations, especially coming immediately after the 2015 general election, which marked the first time power was transitioning from a ruling party at the national level to the opposition. Atahiru Jega, a Professor of Political Science and former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, had just stepped down as head of the electoral body, leaving Amina Bala Zakari, the most senior National Commissioner at that time, to lead in acting capacity. Yakubu, who had served as Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, was found worthy of the large shoes left behind by Jega. Following his screening and eventual clearance by the Senate as provided for in the establishment act of the commission, Yakubu was sworn in by the late former President Muhammadu Buhari on the 9th of November, 2015, to begin his first five years as Chairman of the Commission. Not many thought he would go on to make history as the first Nigerian to oversee two general elections. Even fewer people thought he would be remembered for steering Nigeria’s electoral system into the digital age.
On completion of his first five years, he was reappointed for a second term of five years by the President, cleared by the Senate and sworn in on the 9th December 2020 for another term of five years.
He became the first INEC Chairman to be appointed for a second term in the history of the commission. Today, across the country, there is a debate over his tenure. But one achievement stands out above all, and that is the introduction of technology into the heart of Nigeria’s voting process.
For the record, aside from Attahiru Jega (2011 and 2015), Yakubu is the only INEC Chairman who has conducted two Presidential elections (2019 and 2023). He also conducted about 19 end of tenure and off cycle governorship elections in Edo (3), Ondo (3), Anambra (3 including the November 11, 2025 elections), Kogi (2), Ekiti (2), Osun (2), Imo (1) and Bayelsa (3) as well as over 300 supplementary elections into legislative houses at both the state and national level.
One of Prof Yakubu’s achievements in his ten years in charge of the nation’s electoral system is bringing stability to the conduct of elections in the country. Before his appointment, the dates for the general election were not regular. Nigerians were not always certain that elections would take place on the appointed date. But this changed as he regularised the dates of general elections and FCT Area Council Elections, with the general election now holding on the third Saturday in February of the election year for the Presidential and National Assembly Elections, and two weeks later for the Governorship and State Assembly Elections.
This has made it possible for all stakeholders to plan well ahead of time and ensure better coordination and readiness by the Commission, Improved Voting Procedure and Expansion of Voter Access to Polling Units. Interestingly, following this pattern, the commission has already fixed the dates for the conduct of the next ten general elections spanning from 2027 to 2063 and introduced the Continuous Accreditation and Voting System (CAVS), which replaced the cumbersome practice where accredited voters had to wait for a longer time before casting their votes, which was used in previous elections. This simplified the voting procedure and addressed the potential disenfranchisement of voters, while also expanding access to voting by creating additional polling units across the country.
While 84 million Nigerians had access to a polling unit and voting in 2019, the figure rose to about 93 million during the 2023 general election. In the same vein, the 119,973 polling units created in 1996 remained in force until Yakubu carried out the delineation of fresh constituencies, increasing them to 176,846 polling units, which were used in the 2023 elections. The Commission holds the largest database of Nigerians.
In 2021, during the Anambra governorship election, Nigerians first encountered the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS). Designed to replace the Smart Card Reader, which had been in use and generated several controversies, the BVAS combined fingerprint and facial recognition to confirm voters’ identities. Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, described the BVAS as a game-changer, saying, “It has drastically reduced multiple voting and ballot stuffing. For the first time, we saw technology limiting what politicians could do with raw power.”
Two years earlier, Yakubu’s INEC had unveiled another innovation: the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), which allowed Nigerians to see polling unit results uploaded in real time, long before they were collated at state or national centres. This was used in the governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states. With the IReV, people across the globe could follow the election results on their phones. Analysts believe that a singular act boosted confidence in the system, even if later challenges slowed the momentum.
In spite of his achievements, Yakubu’s tenure has not been without controversy. The 2023 general elections, though relatively peaceful, have come under serious criticism for delays in uploading the results of the Presidential election to the IReV portal. Despite the explanation of technical hitches during the elections, many accuse the commission of deliberately frustrating the system. Others have raised allegations of manipulation during collation. Those who accused the commission consistently said that the commission refused to adopt electronic transmission of results, even when the commission tried to make them understand that transmission and collation mean two different things.
Senator Dino Melaye, who was the PDP agent during the coalition of the 2023 Presidential election results, led this group of people. One opposition party official who would not want to be named told The Nation that “the technology (IReV) was sound, but the human element failed.”
While critics accused INEC of betraying public trust, defenders argued that Yakubu’s reforms had set the stage for deeper institutional change. However, we cannot run away from the fact that Prof Yakubu changed the narratives of how elections are conducted in Nigeria. With the Electoral Act 2022 enshrining electronic accreditation and result transmission into law, the reforms are now bigger than any one individual. An INEC official said, “Prof. Yakubu may not have delivered perfection, but he ensured Nigeria can never fully return to the old ways of writing results in hotel rooms.”
The Yakubu Commission built a more efficient, comprehensive and predictive EMSC dashboard that reports over 1,000 election monitoring indicators and integrates all 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. Interestingly, he will be leaving behind a large stock of institutional memory for future Commissions. These include several reports, position and policy papers. Most importantly, he will establish the first Election Museum in the country to preserve the rich, but checkered history of electoral management in Nigeria. Under his leadership, the Commission enforced the constitutional requirements for registration and deregistration of political parties based on their compliance with extant rules and regulations. On 6th February 2021, INEC, acting under its powers as contained in Section 225A of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), deregistered 74 political parties, reducing the number of political parties in Nigeria to 18. However, the Youth Party was restored by Court Order in July 2019, bringing the number of political parties in Nigeria to 19
Rafsanjani said the INEC chairman came into the saddle at a very critical time in Nigeria’s electoral landscape and has inspired many Nigerians to believe in the commission, particularly before 2023. He said, “Under his leadership, he inspired many Nigerians to believe in INEC, particularly before the 2023 elections. He actually put in place a system that will guarantee electoral transparency by introducing technology in the electoral process. The BVAS and IREV are two of the initiatives aimed at ensuring electoral transparency and to also make Nigerians believe in the electoral system in the country.”
Rafsanjani told The Nation that Yakubu had put in place a system that would guarantee more electoral transparency by introducing technology in elections. The BVAS introduced by the Yakubu-led commission is one of the new initiatives aimed at ensuring electoral transparency and to also make Nigerians believe in the electoral system in the country.
He said, “He has done all that, but he has also met with so many challenges, the usual challenges of logistics and the usual suspicion that many Nigerians are having, especially after the 2023 elections. Now, we need to build on the success that he has built in terms of ensuring that the National Assembly legislates to ensure that the use of technology is part of our law and not at the discretion of INEC. You see what the Supreme Court has done, almost trying to say that technology is not really necessary because it is not in the law. But if you have them embedded in the law, it would be difficult for anybody to give an excuse. We need to invest more in Nigerians to believe in our electoral process because, under democracy, that is the only option we have to organize free, fair and credible elections. If elections are not free, fair and credible, many Nigerians will run away and will not be happy to participate in the electoral process. You will record more apathy if the process is not transparent and if people have no confidence in it, and if rigging and use of dirty money continues”.
While agreeing with the fact that the Yakubu-led leadership has contributed largely to deepening the electoral landscape, Rafsanjani believes that the commission and the electoral system in the country would be better if there is political party reform. This is, however, one of the areas that the Commission has continued to seek the support of Nigerians and the parliament. For example, the Mahmood Yakubu-led commission has been advocating for the establishment of an electoral offences commission and tribunal to handle electoral infractions. Though many Nigerians have joined in this agitation, the bill seeking to establish the commission failed to sail through the 9th Assembly, though it was passed by the Senate. Consideration of the bill was stepped down by the House for identified errors, which were never corrected, and the bill, which was reintroduced in the 10th Assembly, has remained largely unattended.
Also, the commission under the outgoing Chairman has advocated the establishment of the Political Party Registration and Regulatory Commission to handle affairs of the political parties, so that INEC can concentrate on electoral matters.
Rafsanjani said, “We need to have political party reforms in this country because if the political parties are not really meeting the aspirations of Nigerians, then it becomes difficult for Nigerians to participate in the process because under our constitution, there is no provision for independent candidates. Therefore, we need to make sure that political parties work. We cannot continue to run a political party like a personal property. We need to make sure that there is participation of members, there is ownership by the members and that there is an opportunity for the members to freely express their interest, participate and be part of whatever the political party is doing. That’s the only way you can actually have political parties that respect internal democracy and respect the wishes of the people. You cannot come and contest elections under a particular political party and then, without consulting the members, you just walk away. We need to reform political parties to make them more accountable, to make them more participatory and to make the Nigerian people own those parties.
He recalled the practice in the first and second republics when Nigerians owned the parties by paying membership dues, saying, “When you pay membership dues, it makes you feel that you are actually a member and you have every right to know what is going on. As it is now, the political party has been hijacked by people with dirty money, by people in power and by people who are just merchants of intimidation. We have seen politicians bringing thugs to party primaries. This is not how to run a political party. And this can only work if we really improve our political party system and functioning. Then you can have a better election. When you have bad political parties, you have no option then to choose the candidate from one of the bad political parties. So Nigerians should have an option, should have the opportunity to have a party. And this idea of trying to coerce Nigerians to have a one-party system in the country is not helping democracy and is not helping our constitutional democracy. Therefore, we need to make sure that we carry out those reforms”.
Available records revealed that since his first appointment in 2015, Yakubu has put in place many measures to ensure party supremacy and internal party democracy.
Also, Ezenwa Nwagwu, Executive Director of the Peers Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA), believes that the contribution of Yakubu and his team to the Nigerian electoral process has been phenomenal. He said, “They consolidated on the gains made by their predecessor, Prof Jega, by infusing some aspects of our electoral process with technology. Indeed, the most enduring for the Mahmood Yakubu commission will be the introduction of over 20 new technological innovations, most notably, which will be the Bimodal Verification and Authentication System (BVAS) machine, and the INEC Result Viewing (IREV) Portal.”
Nwagwu, who also heads the Civil Society Situation Room on elections believes that the BVAS has substantially reduced voter identification theft, adding that “today, Nigeria’s election results are available for researchers and interested parties in the cloud. Subsequently, the Mahmood Commission gave the country the most politically diverse legislature since the return to democracy in 1999, with close to 40% opposition political parties in the House of Representatives and 20% in the Senate in the 2023 General elections. Also, in the same election, 7 (seven) incumbent governors lost elections to come to the national assembly. It can’t be lost on anyone that the incumbent president during the 2023 elections, who appointed Professor Mahmood Yakubu, lost his state of origin, residence and workplace to the opposition in 2023. As his tenure comes to a close, he could have done better with public issues management and political communication”.
