Oditah Slams Ex-INEC Boss Yakubu for Exiting Without Explaining 2023 Election Glitches

A former governorship aspirant in Delta State and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Professor Fidelis Oditah, has openly criticized the departure of Professor Mahmood Yakubu as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), expressing deep regret that the former chairman left office without providing a comprehensive public explanation for the technological “glitches” that plagued the electronic transmission of results during the controversial 2023 presidential election. The highly respected lawyer and academic, known for his incisive analysis on legal and national issues, voiced his profound disappointment during a recent interview appearance on Arise Television.

Dependable NG reports that the public rebuke comes just 48 hours after Professor Yakubu formally concluded his tenure and handed over the reins to Mrs. May Agbamuche as the Acting National Chairman of the Commission. Oditah’s strong statement underscores the persistent public dissatisfaction and the lingering questions surrounding the credibility of the election process, particularly concerning the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal. The commission had made explicit promises that the new electronic infrastructure would ensure the real-time upload of polling unit results, a commitment that was visibly not met during the presidential poll.

“It is regrettable that Yakubu was allowed to go without telling Nigerians the glitches that prevented election results transmission in the 2023 presidential election,” the legal scholar, who is also a Queen’s Counsel (QC) in the United Kingdom, lamented. He stressed that the failure to clarify the technical issues severely compromises the principle of electoral transparency that INEC was mandated to uphold. “He simply said there were glitches, and till today, he has left without telling us what these glitches were. He obviously felt unaccountable to anyone,” Oditah stated, highlighting the perceived lack of institutional accountability at the highest level of Nigeria’s electoral management body.

The controversy surrounding the election’s electronic transmission of results formed a major plank of the legal challenges brought by opposition parties before both the Tribunal and the Supreme Court. While the courts ultimately upheld the election outcome, the issues associated with the IReV portal’s performance—including unexplained delays, non-upload of results in critical areas, and later, reported inconsistencies between physical and digital records—have fundamentally eroded public confidence in INEC’s technological capabilities. Professor Oditah’s intervention as a former politician, a Delta State governorship aspirant, and a decorated legal authority, reinforces the view that resolving the electoral integrity deficit is paramount for Nigeria’s democratic consolidation, demanding a full and unreserved explanation from the past leadership for the systemic failures witnessed during the highly contested poll. The lack of a conclusive report leaves the current leadership and the entire electoral system vulnerable to the same criticisms in future elections.