Story: written by Uzu Rita October 13,2025
Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has acknowledged that his ten-year tenure (2015–2025) was fraught with persistent crises that challenged the credibility of Nigeria’s elections, despite several reforms and technological innovations.

Yakubu made the disclosure in INEC’s latest publication, Election Management in Nigeria: 2015–2025, where he offered a frank assessment of the commission’s struggles over the past decade.

He described a period marked by repeated setbacks — including conflicting court judgments, pre-election litigations, and violent attacks on INEC facilities and personnel — all of which, he said, repeatedly disrupted the electoral process and undermined public trust.

“The 2015–2025 decade was not without its challenges. Conflicting court orders, violence targeted at our staff and facilities, the scourge of vote trading, and persistent logistics bottlenecks continued to test the credibility and smooth conduct of elections,” Yakubu stated.

According to him, INEC faced an overwhelming number of legal disputes, with thousands of cases dragging the commission into conflicting rulings from courts of equal jurisdiction. These contradictions, he said, often created uncertainty and derailed election preparations.

He further listed widespread vote-buying, logistical breakdowns that led to last-minute postponements, and targeted attacks on election officials as some of the most destabilising challenges.

Yakubu also noted that technical and operational issues compounded the difficulties, with system failures, equipment malfunctions, and network disruptions occasionally crippling the accreditation and result transmission process — thereby deepening voter skepticism about INEC’s capacity and integrity.

Despite these obstacles, Yakubu maintained that the commission’s commitment to electoral transparency and reform was unwavering, stressing that the lessons from the turbulent decade would be crucial in shaping a stronger, more resilient electoral system for Nigeria’s democracy.