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The Labour Party (LP) has expressed cautious optimism and stern warning to the newly appointed Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan (SAN), urging him to rise above the failures of his predecessors and redeem Nigeria’s battered electoral image before the world.

In a strongly worded statement signed by Prince Tony Akeni, the party’s National Publicity Secretary (Interim), on Friday, October 10, 2025, the LP described the appointment of Prof. Amupitan as a decisive turning point that will either “redeem the largest democracy in Africa or further mutilate and bury its corpse which the ballot master-liar of all time, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has left behind as INEC Chairman.”

A Call to Choose Between Legacy and Loyalty

The Labour Party statement drew a moral line for the new INEC boss, declaring that he must decide who he serves — the Nigerian people or the political interests that appointed him.

“Above the pecks, glamour and glitter of the highly visible office which Prof. Amupitan now occupies, he must choose what he wishes to achieve and be remembered for. He must choose whether to be honoured by more than 230 million Nigerians who employed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, or to serve the unconstitutional wishes and caprices of a single man, Tinubu, who appointed him,” the statement reads.

The LP called on the new electoral chief to reflect deeply on how history will remember his predecessor, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, accusing the immediate past INEC Chairman of inflicting unprecedented damage on the credibility of Nigeria’s electoral system.

A Trail of Electoral Controversies

Recalling Nigeria’s history of controversial elections under successive INEC leaderships, the Labour Party compared the legacies of former chairmen — Prof. Maurice Iwu, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and Prof. Mahmood Yakubu — describing each as a worsening progression in the decline of electoral integrity.

“Under the Obasanjo years, Nigerians thought Prof. Maurice Iwu was the worst electoral referee until Prof. Jega came and proved otherwise. Then came Mahmood Yakubu, who destroyed the last vestige of Nigeria’s electoral integrity almost to the point of no redemption,” the statement added.

According to the Labour Party, Prof. Yakubu’s tenure turned Nigeria’s democratic hope into “a proverb of despair set in concrete,” breeding record voter apathy that has “no comparison in any other country in Africa and almost the entire world.”

2023 General Elections and Alleged Betrayal

The LP revisited the 2023 general elections, accusing Prof. Yakubu of betraying Nigerians and the global community after promising real-time transmission of election results via the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

“He brazenly took the opposite stand against his own assurances, dismissed BVAS results as non-compulsory, and then uploaded mutilated and duplicated result sheets supplied by the ruling party,” the party alleged.

“He and his commissioners stood by those fabrications in the election tribunals and returned the snatch-and-run concoctions of the presidential election, several governorship and assembly results as winners against the actual landslide victory of the Labour Party.”

The statement also accused the former INEC boss of deliberately manipulating voter registration figures in preparation for the 2027 elections, citing what it called “phantom records” of new voters in President Tinubu’s home state of Osun.

“Mahmood awarded a record 393,269 new voters in Osun State alone, against just 1,998 in the five South-East states combined. Nearly half a million new voters in a state of 4.6 million people, and less than 2,000 in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo put together. That was his last service to the ruling APC,” the statement claimed.

Sabotage of Labour Party and Unlawful Actions

Prince Akeni further accused the Yakubu-led INEC of systematically sabotaging the Labour Party, citing the alleged unlawful delisting of LP candidates from several local government and municipal elections slated for 2025 and 2026.

“Mahmood clinically sabotaged the Labour Party from participating in crucial elections across the country by unlawfully delisting the party from fielding candidates,” Akeni said.

He also faulted INEC’s refusal to update its official portal with the authentic leadership of the party as determined by the Supreme Court, insisting that Yakubu’s INEC “treacherously retained the defunct Julius Abure-led faction” to weaken the LP.

First Test for Amupitan

The Labour Party declared that Prof. Amupitan’s first major test as INEC Chairman would be to immediately correct the alleged injustice by expunging the Abure-led faction from INEC’s records and replacing it with the Nenadi Usman-led executive council — which the party’s statutory National Executive Council (NEC) had duly submitted in line with the Supreme Court’s judgment.

“This will be the first all-important litmus test that Prof. Amupitan must pass to prove that he has come to serve Nigeria in earnest and in the spirit of his oath of office,” the statement said.

The Eyes of the World on Nigeria’s Electoral Commission

The party emphasized that the new INEC boss is now under the close watch of Nigerians and the international community, noting that global democracies continue to look to Nigeria as a model for either good or bad electoral practice.

“Prof. Amupitan must realize that he is not only on the radar of Nigerians but also the entire civilized world — the West and emerging democracies — which look unto Nigeria for examples,” the statement concluded.

“He must prove that he is not another electoral vampire out to serve incumbents and ballot moneybags, but a true umpire determined to save Nigeria’s troubled democracy.”

Background

Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan (SAN), a renowned constitutional law expert and former Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Jos, was appointed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the new INEC Chairman in October 2025, succeeding Prof. Mahmood Yakubu whose tenure was marred by controversy and public distrust following the 2023 general elections.

His appointment has drawn mixed reactions across the political spectrum, with some commending his academic pedigree and others, like the Labour Party, urging him to demonstrate independence and moral courage in restoring public faith in Nigeria’s electoral system.

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