Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has called for the removal of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

He stated that all INEC officials at every level should be sacked as part of a move to restructure and revamp the electoral process in Nigeria.

Obasanjo made these remarks in a pre-recorded speech played at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum at Yale University in the United States.

The former President described the 2023 general election as a “travesty,” emphasizing the need for the INEC chairperson to be transparently independent and incorruptible.

“These technologies were touted by the INEC chairman himself. In the end, these technologies did not fail. INEC willfully failed to use or implement them, which resulted in widespread voting irregularities. It was a case of inviting the fox into the henhouse.”

Obasanjo proposed a shorter tenure for INEC officials and a more thorough vetting process to prevent the appointment of partisan individuals.

He criticised INEC and its chairman for neglecting to use the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV) during the 2023 presidential election.

“Nigeria must ensure the appointment of new credible INEC leadership at the federal, state, local government, and municipal – city, town, and village – levels, with short tenures to prevent undesirable political influence and corruption and to re-establish trust in the electoral system by its citizens.”