Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, INEC Chair, deploys E-VOTING SCAM for re-appointment

Professor Mahmoud  Yakubu the current Chairman of the Independent  National Electoral Commission (INEC)  is being clever. He is deploying scam to seek re-appointment desperately.

Less than two months to the end of his tenure, he wants to sell Nigerians another  pie-in-the-sky. This is coming after shutting down and declaiming INEC Server he spent Billions of Naira on. He is retreating from it, in order to fraudulently  distort the result of the 2019 Presidential  Election. Prof. Jega would not have chicken out as a man of conviction and courage to do the right thing. But Professor Mahmoud  Yakubu betrayed Nigerians and the public does not trust him to chair the election management body anymore. He should be stopped from this embarrassing subtle campaign for re-appointment. Jega did just a term and left behind a hopeful legacy of trust and confidence in the Electoral process. But Professor Mahmoud  Yakubu has destroyed it.

He may  believe he has a chance to sell his new scam for re-appointment because  he thinks Nigerians have forgotten so soon and moved on from the most egregious betrayal of Trust he committed against the Nigerian people. No. We have not forgot how he almost denied conducting the 2019 election while trying to deny the existence of Central Server . He has lost public confidence to preside over INEC and the 2023 election.

Nigerians who felt betrayed by his denial of the existence of an IT Server are want  to ask Prof Yakubu and his fellow scammers hard  questions and will like to know the following:

Attahiru JEGA

When Professor Attahiru Jega left INEC in 2015, the use of Card Readers authentication for finger verification before a voter was allowed to have access to ballot to avoid fraud and prevent those who stockpiled PVCs from using them was over 54% of voters during the 2015 elections.

How come Professor Mahmoud Yakubu mismanaged this innovation that brought President Buhari to power? The innovation is now reduced  to less than 19% performance of biometrics authentication in the 2019 election. That means people voted without their fingers verified as owners of PVCs. This was the worst performance in Kogi and Bayelsa elections. Card Readers were not used for finger verification according to INEC Ad hoc Staff  who participated in those elections?

Prof. Yakubu uninspiring leadership of INEC has not improved significantly on any of what Prof. Jega introduced like the Card Reader performance that should have been increasing  in figure above 70% by now. Why should Professor Mahmoud  Yakubu and his team expect Nigerians to trust them with a second term re- appointment ?

Is it not true that he has been systematically superintending over the decline of the Card Reader. And he has been embracing results from one Arena of Grand-Theft Elections to another?

Can Professor Yakubu and his National Commissioners Team  deny that they bought zPads as well as installed costly IT Equipment  with which they promised to transmit Election results during the  2019 General Elections ? What happened that forced them to drop the data from the huge IT investment?  Is it Pressure from Amina Zakari’s family ? What will prevent such scam again  when using E-voting ?

INTERNATIONAL  DONORS

Did Yakubu and his colleagues  not accept funds  from International  Donors. Specific donors include the European Union to train a category of staff they called RATECH to facilitate the transmission  of results and other field data from INEC state offices  only to deny using these facilities,  just to make his scam with the server stick?

Does  Professor Mahmoud  Yakubu and his  leadership think that Nigerians have forgotten the shame of several inconclusive elections he subjected the nation to since 2016 when he took over as chairman and the tragedy of the 2019 elections ?

 Does he realise that he no longer commands the confidence of the electorate in Nigeria  as well as  the respect and trust of  International  Donors?

Professor Mahmoud  Yakubu speaks of punishment of electoral offenders when its convenient to him since 2019 election. But no offenders have been arraigned in court of law.

What makes  Yakubu think he can deceive Nigerians in his quest for re-appointment? He is trying to sell another chimera in  the name of Electronic Voting, another fantasy to Nigerians?

Does he think that Nigerians are  ready to listen to this Electronic voting Re-appointment campaign jingle?

EDO ELECTION

Is it not a fact  that Professor Mahmoud Yakubu and his National Commissioners almost shelved  the ICT that was used to transmit election results from Polling Units in the Edo State Election only to allow it at the last minute when instructions from “Above” were received  to ensure the defeat and disgrace of some national leaders of a Political  Party ? Why did he dropped the use of  z-Pad for authentication in Edo and allowed a Rec totally lacking of legal and moral authority  having been  a member of PDP at one time and now a member of APC to preside over Edo election when he has power to redeploy him to another  state ? But for media exposure and public outcry both Edo and Ondo elections are to be used as quid pro quo for second term re-appointment.

Will INEC allow the same ICT result transmission in Edo to succeed in Ondo?

Does the Constitution  not empower INEC to decide how Elections should  be conducted, but did Prof Yakubu not use his own whim to repudiate and abdicate that power when he declared that INEC had no enabling Law for using electronic transmission  of results, just to hide the INEC server? Where did he get the power to use it in Nasarawa and Edo states?

Prof Yakubu and his re-appointment-seeking colleagues launched  a public jamboree to invite everyone to witness the demonstrations of e-Voting  equipment. Is that not a process that the User Departments in INEC ought to have concluded before bringing it before the public? Must this be used as a campaign for second term re-appointment?

CO OPTING MEDIA

Why issue a press statement to Nigerians even a day after the launch of a re-appointment campaign jamboree, repeating what had been said before that more vendors would be coming to make presentations ?

When did  Prof Yakubu and colleagues invite the public to witness the testing of zPads, Result Transmission Servers etc?

This is the first time in the history of Nigeria that a sitting Chairman of INEC and his team of national commissioners would embark on a full scale re-appointment public campaign under the guise of E-voting to hoodwink Nigerians. Why should people be allowed to campaign for such a  sensitive office of an election umpire? In decent countries, such a move attracts automatic disqualification. This is because engaging politicians to secure such offices would involve making partisan commitments and promises.

Professor Mahmoud  Yakubu please, sell your dreamscape to the gullible. It will not fly this time ! Nigerians have no confidence in you. Your re-appointment would spell doom for the 2023 elections. With you, President Muhammadu Buhari would have left no enduring legacy unlike his predecessor if he reappoints you.