Senate confirms Prof. Amupitan as new INEC Chairman

The Senate has confirmed the appointment of Prof. Joash Amupitan (SAN) as the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The Upper Chamber approved the confirmation of Amupitan at plenary after hours of screening by the lawmakers.

9news Nigeria reports that Amupitan succeeded Mahmood Yakubu, who served as chairman between 2015 and 2025.

Answering questions from the senators, Amupitan, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) from Kogi, said: “I did not lead the legal team of President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal.

“I did not appear at the tribunal either at the Court of Appeal or at the Supreme Court,” he said.

Amupitan also said he would work with relevant agencies like the National Identity Management Commission ((NIMC) and Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to improve the electoral processes.

He said: “I have to audit the system if I’m given the opportunity to see what is actually wrong and whether we have what it takes as it is now.

“It is not INEC responsibility alone. We have the other agencies like NCC, NIMC and the service providers that we have to work together.

“This is to ensure that we give Nigerians the technology that everybody will be happy about.

“There will definitely be an audit of what the system, especially of the logistics and ensure that the proper strategy is put in place.

“We all know the problem. So, we’ll find a proper strategy to be able to confront those problems headlong,” Amupitan said.

According to him, logistics is a matter that must be tackled to ensure improvement in the electoral processes.

“We rely on third-party logistics to transport sensitive election materials. This is because some of the vehicles you see, are old, they don’t even go too far.

“When they (vehicles) drop the materials, they don’t even wait to bring the materials back,” he said.

On the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), Amupitan said that back then, there was no clarity as to the purpose of IReV.

He said: “Not until the Supreme Court came out to say that IReV was not an electronic collation system, that issue was not properly thrashed out before the election.

“The IReV was supposed to be a safeguard for comparison but the laws made by this distinguished Senate did not do away with manual collations,” he said.

He, however, said that IReV was supposed to provide some guarantees, checks and balances.

According to him, one of the things that I will do is to work out an internal mechanism that we can use to train the behaviour of humans.

“In the first place, I’m taking this position on trust and the people who I’m going to work with, they must also appreciate the fact that they are there on trust,” he said.

Amupitan added that there was the need for an electoral offence commission that would be able to investigate perpetrators of electoral offences.

Speaking on behalf of Kogi senators, Sen. Sunday Karimi commended Amupitan’s nomination, adding that Amupitan would not disappoint Nigerians.

“This is the first time Kogi is having one of its own as an INEC chairman. Let’s allow him work for our electoral process to yield positive results,” Karimi said.

In his remarks, President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio said: “Let me thank distinguished senators for the painstaking manner in which they handled this as a Committee of the Whole.

“I wish Prof. Amupitan well and pray that his services will improve the electoral process, lead to more transparency and ensure that every vote counts and that the winners are truly the ones that are announced,” he said.