The newly appointed Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Joash Amupitan, will formally assume office on Thursday, 23 October 2025, at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja.
An internal memo signed by Deputy Director of Publicity, Wilfred Ifogah, confirmed that an inaugural meeting between the incoming chairman and INEC directors will hold at 1:30 p.m. in the Commission’s Conference Hall.
Amupitan is expected to resume duties following his swearing-in by President Bola Tinubu. His appointment comes after the completion of Professor Mahmood Yakubu’s two-term tenure, which spanned from 2015 to 2025 and oversaw two general elections as well as several off-cycle polls across the country.
At a colloquium held in Abuja on Wednesday by the Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA) to review a decade of INEC leadership, civil society groups urged Amupitan to build on Yakubu’s achievements. The event, themed “Strengthening Nigeria’s Democracy: Reflections on a Decade of INEC Leadership,” gathered political leaders, academics, and civic actors who praised Yakubu’s technological and institutional reforms.
Deputy National Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Hon. Dipo Olayoku, said conducting elections in Nigeria remains one of the country’s toughest national duties, stressing that the “do-or-die” political mindset still undermines democracy. He commended Yakubu for introducing technology-driven systems that enhanced transparency and voter confidence.
“Through technology, Professor Yakubu made our elections more credible and acceptable,” Olayoku said. However, he cautioned that the lack of accountability for electoral offences continues to threaten the progress achieved so far.
Echoing this, Chief Ezenwa Nwagwu, Executive Director of the Pioneering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Nigeria (PAACA), hailed Yakubu’s tenure as a period of remarkable innovation. He highlighted the digitisation of electoral processes and the electronic transmission of results via the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) as milestones that deepened transparency and public trust.
As Amupitan takes the helm, expectations are high that he will consolidate on these reforms and lead INEC towards an era of greater credibility, efficiency, and integrity in Nigeria’s electoral process.
