Presidential Aide Blasts INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu Says He Lacks Initiative

Sagay Attacks INEC Boss, Mahmood Yakubu

Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, (PACAC), has lambasted the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Mahmood Yakubu describing him as a “very weak man” who lacks initiative.

Prof Itse Sagay said this against the backdrop of plans by INEC to register more political parties, ahead of the 2023 general election in the country.

The PACAC Chairman in his submission, accused Yakubu of passing the buck in the face of problems instead of taking responsibility and finding the solution.

In his chat with Independent, Sagay said: “Well, I think INEC is to blame for all these. A body like INEC should be proactive. When they found that the whole thing was getting out of hand with 91 parties, they should have done something about it.

“I myself with my level of education find it very difficult to identify my party logo out of the 73 political parties that contested in the presidential election. Now, INEC is talking of 200 and they are just saying it without thinking of what to do about it so that we don’t get to that level.

“Shouldn’t INEC now through the government propose an amendment to the provisions of the constitution for registration of political parties?

“That is what INEC should be talking of. They should get their lawyers to draft a document and send it to the Ministry of Justice so that the conditions for registration can be made more drastic and at the end, we won’t have more than 10 political parties.

“For me, it’s all a sign of INEC’s weakness which has been a serious problem particularly in these 2019 elections as against the one in 2015 when we had a chairman of INEC who knew what he was doing.

“The current INEC chairman is a very weak man and doesn’t have any initiative. He is not proactive and collapses easily under problems and just articulates the problems without any solutions while waiting for somebody else to do it for him.”