A Yakubu Mahmood will give you every reason to believe. He will wrap you in confidence and make you trust the process. He will travel across the nation, speaking with calm assurance, convincing you that your vote will count. He will even go as far as Chatham House in London, standing before international bodies, laying out beautiful processes and polished promises of a free and fair election.
A Yakubu Mahmood will introduce regulations, make electronic transmission look mandatory, and build a system that appears strong, reliable, and ready. He will not delist political parties or meddle carelessly in their affairs, because he has a different strategy… a quiet but surprising one.
A Mahmood Yakubu will do all of these.
And then, at the very end, he will fail you with two simple sentences: “There was a technical glitch” and “go to court if you are not satisfied with the process ”
That is Yakubu Mahmood for you.
He will take you to the gates of the promised land, let you see it, feel it, almost touch it… and then deny you entry.
But a Joash Amupitan led INEC is something else entirely.
It is not soft. It is not persuasive. It does not pretend.
An Amupitan will not even allow you to get close to the promised land. Not for a second. Not for a glimpse. Because to him, that proximity is too risky for the interest he protects.
An Amupitan will not hesitate to delist any political party that does not align. He will not waste time trying to convince you that your vote will count. That is not his concern.
Instead, he will make it clear.
Win if you like… but if you do not dance to his tune, your victory can be taken away.
Just like the case of Senator Marafa v APC in Zamfara.
An Amupitan interprets court judgments the way he chooses and executes without pause, without patience, without explanation.
Where Yakubu pampers, Amupitan chastises.
Where Yakubu smiles, Amupitan warns.
One gives you hope and quietly breaks it.
The other never gives you hope at all.
May we not miss a Yakubu… as deceptive as he was, after the 2027 elections.
Written by Ekene Aninze Esq.
