By Miracle Egbo
For many of those who spent large chunk of their working life in the ivory tower traversing the different gamut of teaching profession, be it Assistant Lecturer, Senior Lecturer , Reader, Associate Professor and then Professor, life outside the daily routine of teaching could be monotonous , devoid of the verve that propel led them as professors . Therefore, for these category of professors any public office that has the trappings of money , leaving the ivory tower could actually mean the commencement of journey to greener pasture, the time to straddle the national platform, like a dinosaur afraid of going back to Egypt where honey and milk is in a short supply.
For those who are adept at applying remedial balm over the desperate ambition of some professors in this clime who are saddled with juicy position of conducting election in this part of the world using the foray of their counterparts in sane climes who have performed excellently in the course of deepening their democracy, they have been faulted by the behaviour of Professor Mahmood Yakubu in the way he had conducted the February 25, 2023 Presidential election. On the contrary, some of these professors who are weighed down by both domestic and national baggage here are often the ones that stride the podium, seeking further authority.
Take Professor Yakubu for instance. After dishing suspicious and fatally fraudulent election in 2019, he was practically foisted on Nigeria to still conduct the 2023 general election no thanks to alleged amorous affinity to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs .Now, instead righting the wrongs he did in the conduct of the 2019 disaster where the will of the electorate was consigned to history-bin of fraud, his conduct of 2023 Presidential and National Assembly election appeared to have ignited his knack for fraud. Besides, instead of Yakubu signaling his retirement from the public service because of his dismal performance as the Chairman of the electoral umpire, somewhat appears to have ignited a fresh passion: to remain relevant in the administration that would succeed the administration of the outgoing President Mohammadu Buhari by May 29, 2023.
But while he is at the plot of becoming relevant, questions are spiraling over what he did with billions of naira given to him to invest in technology for the credible and fair conduct of the 2023 general election which is even worse than the one he conducted in 2019. Nigerians are lividly worried that the facts on the ground do not equate with the quantum of resources at his disposal for the purpose of conducting election that has been described as the worst in the annals of conducting election in Nigeria since its nascent democracy.
Prominent Nigerians, civil society groups and Nigerian electorate have been consistently asking Yakubu to swallow his pride and explain to Nigerians why the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System, BIVAS which gulped billions of naira failed to work when it was needed most in the conduct of the 2023 Presidential and National Assembly poll. His failure to fulfill the promise he made to the electorate that he would use the B IVAS to transmit the result electronically real time, based on the law, has bestowed illegitimacy on the product of the election conducted on February 25, 2023. What is not clear is if Yakubu was not told that he was to conduct the election in trust for Nigerians, and the trust is now in deficit even if the forthcoming governorship election is not swallowed in the cesspit of fraud, irregularities that dogged the Presidential and National Assembly elections have tainted the outcome of any other election to be conducted by INEC.
Simply put, the dismal outing of INEC in February 25, 2023 has put disturbing question mark on the promise Yakubu made in the presence of the international community and Nigerians alike that he was bent on conducting free, fair and credible election with the assistance of BIVAS, but facts on ground suggest that the professor of politics observed that promise in malicious breach.
Professor Yakubu and his gang given the responsibility of conducting election in the country have proved that they are cashok who are given the mandate to manage democracy in the country.
