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From afar, or a reasonable distance, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Joash Amupitan, projects the image of a reasonable and successful man. He presents himself as an accomplished legal luminary, a renowned academician and a distinguished citizen by any stretch of the imagination. He is also a Senior Lawyer of Nigeria (SAN). His slow and measured elocution on matters of socio-political issues endears him to the audience.
Having held various positions at the University of Jos and other universities, no one will doubt his ability to serve society in any capacity. But it all ends there, and nothing more. Professor Amupitan’s appointment and subsequent appointment as INEC president reveal him to be a man of scant and unstable convictions. His current struggle for integrity in his high position affirms his inadequacy and poor preparation to function dispassionately in office.
At a time in our country’s history when many people display an acute lack of integrity and an abysmal lack of even the slightest iota of honour, Amupitan’s rise as INEC Chairman has resonated across the country, sending multiple messages into the political atmosphere.
While some argue that a presidentially appointed INEC chairman will never be impartial, others, knowing full well the political antecedents of President Bola Tinubu, argue that a man appointed by him would surely indulge his hemorrhagic whims and whims. However, some people believed that Amupitan was a man with some level of integrity, no matter how small.
It didn’t take long for Amupitan to prove his doubters right. When he came out to dance as the country’s election drums beat during the off-cycle Anambra State governorship election, he danced with weak and unconvincing steps. The elections were marred by fraud, vote-buying and other forms of inducements. Yet, many people gave him the benefit of the doubt. When another round of elections took place earlier this year in the FCT, Rivers states and Kano state, where the All Progressives Congress (APC) swept the polls, many people were convinced that INEC’s Amupitan was incapable of organizing credible elections. However, the INEC boss continued to dance on wobbly legs, tossed around by the powers behind his appointment.
Gradually, the legal luminary began to speak out of both sides of his mouth, speaking contradictorily with feeble promises of election transparency. Then the debate began. Can Professor Amupitan ensure free and fair elections in 2027? Is he honorable enough to remain apolitical and save the country from the political demons who are deliberately leading the country to Golgotha for ultimate crucifixion? As expected, he has become the most popular person in Nigeria as his name has danced across social media and mainstream media with varying degrees of determined intensity.
Then, Amupitan’s dance of shame, which began in 2023, entered the public domain in 2026. Nigeria’s legion of digital diggers unearthed his X account when he was an unknown and unsung professor of law at the University of Jos, showing his support for APC and Bola Tinubu, the president.
Given the content of the tweets, Amupitan’s dance of shame makes him unfit as an executive arbiter of Nigeria’s electoral body. His apolitical image and neutrality are called into question. The above scenario justifies the belief of millions of Nigerians that they will not be able to conduct free and fair elections in 2027.
For a distinguished law professor, his shameful public display of bias signals the appropriateness of his immediate resignation from the position of INEC President. By being caught supporting a political party in a competition in which he is the referee, he has dishonored his ancestors, his academic training as a teacher and his professional training as a lawyer. However, he still has some leeway to regain his honor and banish shame from his repertoire: resign. Resignation is the most honorable way for him to leave the electorate because the possibility of being fired by the president is remotely unlikely.
As a private citizen, Amupitan reserves the right to support any political party of his choice or align himself with any political ideology. But it becomes obnoxious behavior to hide these prejudices and agree to be a referee, knowing full well that his political beliefs are compromised ab initio. The fact that Amupitan hides his support for the APC and President Bola Tinubu and agrees to be the Chairman of INEC designates him as the number one enemy of the Nigerian state and its clumsy democratic culture. His mischievous tendencies were on full display when his X handle suddenly changed from @joashamupitan to @sundayvibes00.
The denial that the original account did not belong to him is shameless and primitive, yet the topic has been pushed into the public space for consumption. In this age of digital sophistication, it is impossible to completely erase archive indexing. The original messages supporting APC and Bola Tinubu were traced back to the first account, which is Amupitan’s verified X account. To highlight the betrayal of the entire scheme, the new X account transmuted from Amupitan’s original X account was immediately labeled a parody account and access to it was summarily restricted. Nothing could be more ridiculous and naive.
Interestingly, since the news broke, Professor Joash Amupitan has stubbornly refused to address it and address all related issues head-on. He has a duty to address the issue and state his version of events. Continuing to remain silent means guilt and acceptance of shame throughout development. The statement that he is not on social media is boring and conveys a lie of advanced brazenness. In a video that has been doing the rounds on social media, while answering questions on television, Amupitan admitted that he learned about the removal of ADC from INEC portal from his social media account. If he’s not on social media, which social media account were you referring to please?
Evidently, some people are working desperately to plunge Nigeria into a colossal crisis that would consume both the leaders and those who are led. The CENI chief’s current desperate measures call into question the legitimacy of any electoral conduct associated with his name. And for an APC government that has suffocated under the weight of illegitimacy since the 2023 elections, Amupitan’s partisan leanings further cast the party into the dustbin of ignominy. If only the Nigerian political class had a modicum of shame.
As if Amupitan’s dance of shame through his past tweets wasn’t enough, his INEC is currently orchestrating the dismantling of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Nigeria’s only credible and viable opposition political party. Nigerians expected Joash Amupitan, as a law professor, to know better the interpretation of the law. But like a man on a mission to guaranteed perdition, his INEC pledged to destabilize the ADC and curb its maniacal momentum across the country. Today, the ADC is not present on the INEC portal as the 2027 general elections approach with vigor.
The implications are not only grave but tragic for Nigerian democracy. The use of such vindictive measures against the opposition paints the Bola Tinubu government as a despotic government, which does not tolerate any opposition. The court’s decision that the ADC should return to the status quo ante bellum is simple. You don’t all have to be lawyers to research and understand this simple Latin maxim. It simply means “the state existing before the war”. Amupitan should soon realize that Nigerians are not stupid, even if they are docile.
The big question is: what status existed in the ADC before they went to court due to an externally induced leadership crisis in the party? Either we are referring to when Ralph Nwosu was the president or when David Mark was the party president. In any case, the ADC is fine. The illiterate Nafiu Bala has resigned from whatever position he held in the party, and the details are in the public domain. But INEC and Amupitan, desperate to promote a grotesque dance of shame and discredit Nigeria’s democracy, are exploiting the court’s statement to paralyze the ADC. Some disoriented Nigerians and victims of severe psychological disorders have speculated that INEC can remove ADC from their portal and heaven will not fall. Such a senseless submission should never become public knowledge to save enlightened minds from a decidedly sick mentality.
Amupitan’s continued tenure as INEC Chairmanship is an embarrassment to Nigerian democracy and has the potential to inflame the country’s fragile socio-political environment. Democracy is about competition and choices. Any instrument or personality that constitutes an obstacle to equitable democratic practice fuels the fires of conflict and public unrest. The APC-controlled federal government may conceive of Nigerians as a conquered people and Nigeria as its fiefdom, but history teaches us that those who obstructed democracy in Nigeria were consumed by an inexplicable existential hell. Nigerians sincerely hope that the current APC government is not deviously staging a swansong for democracy in the country. Amupitan should resign now. The eyes of millions of Nigerians are tired of watching his dance of shame before the world.
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