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INEC chair urges lawmakers to fast-track implementation of electoral reforms
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has called on lawmakers to accelerate the approval of electoral law reforms.
Speaking Thursday in Abuja at a meeting with the European Union Election Observation Follow-up Mission to Nigeria—headed by Barry Andrews, who previously led the EU Mission for the 2023 General Election—Yakubu stressed the importance of timely legislative action.
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The INEC chairman argued that prompt passage of electoral amendments is essential for the commission’s preparation for upcoming elections.
“Uncertainty over the legal framework for the election can unsettle the work of the commission as the election draws nearer,” Yakubu said.
He disclosed that INEC has examined all eight recommendations specifically targeting the commission within the European Union Election Observation Mission’s (EU EOM) analysis of the 2023 general election.
Yakubu provided historical context, explaining that the 2019 EU EOM produced 30 recommendations—11 directed at INEC, with three classified as priority items and eight as general recommendations.
By contrast, the 2023 EU EOM report generated 23 recommendations, with eight (34.8%) requiring INEC action. Just one qualified as a priority recommendation.
The other 15 recommendations (65.2%), including five designated as priorities, call for action from various entities such as the executive branch, legislature, judiciary, political parties, and civil society organizations.
“The commission has carefully considered all eight recommendations specifically addressed to us in your report,” Yakubu said.
“Action has already been taken on those aspects that require only administrative measures for implementation.”
“Similarly, action is being taken on cross-cutting recommendations that require collective action between INEC and other bodies and stakeholders while waiting for the conclusion of the ongoing legal review by the National Assembly on the recommendations that require legislative intervention.”
The chairman explained that EU recommendations, along with input from other domestic and international election observers, informed INEC’s comprehensive post-election analysis of the 2023 general election through consultations with various institutions and stakeholders.
This review process yielded 142 recommendations for electoral improvements, and INEC released its comprehensive report on the 2023 general election more than twelve months ago.
“As you are aware, an election is a process governed by law. Many of your recommendations require a review of our electoral legal framework,” Yakubu said.
“For this reason, the commission has engaged with the National Assembly, including participating in a retreat with the Joint Committee on Electoral Matters.”
Yakubu pledged INEC’s continued cooperation with the EU Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) and other monitoring organizations, acknowledging that their input has enhanced the standard of Nigeria’s electoral system and procedures.
Barry Andrews stated the mission’s purpose was to evaluate implementation progress on the recommendations from the EU EOM’s 2023 general election report.
Andrews noted the mission’s focus on understanding implementation levels, obstacles encountered, and issues surrounding future reforms, particularly those requiring constitutional changes.
“What we are here to do is to review the recommendations that came from the overall mission and were included in the final report published in 2023,” he said.
“We are very happy to see that there has been significant progress in addressing these recommendations.”
“We recognize that there are certain time constraints, both in terms of judicial and administrative reforms,” Andrews said.
“Of course, constitutional reform is somewhat more complex, but all of these recommendations are made against international standards that the EU, Nigeria, and most countries have committed to.”
He added, “We are part of a global election observation ecosystem that has helped to strengthen and support democracy—not only in Nigeria or Africa but across the world, including Europe.”
Referencing the off-cycle governorship elections held following the 2023 general election, Andrews mentioned the mission’s particular interest in measures taken to improve transparency in results publication—a critical recommendation from their earlier report.
Justice Muhammad Nuraddeen Bello of High Court sitting in Sokoto State has sentenced three men, including a foreign national, to death by hanging, after convicting them on charges bordering on terrorism and arms proliferation.
The convicts, Yusuf Muhammad (alias Sallau), a Nigerien; Jabbi Alhaji Yalle; and Kabiru Muhammad, were apprehended on 13th June, 2025, by the Department of State Services (DSS) Counter Terrorism Unit in connection with cross-border criminal activities bordering on arms trafficking and terrorism.
Bello, who found all three defendants guilty as charged and sentenced them to death by hanging, while also ordering the forfeiture of all monetary exhibits recovered from the convicts to the Federal Government, said: “The conviction is the latest in a series of successful prosecutions by the DSS in its sustained operations against terrorism and organised cross-border criminal networks across Nigeria.”
The sentencing is coming about two weeks after the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sentenced each of the five suspects arrested on May 31, 2026, by the DSS for their involvement in the November 21, 2025, attack on St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Niger State, to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Binta Nyako, had handed down the judgment after the men, including two Nigeriens, pleaded guilty to all four terrorism-related charges, bordering on support for the commission of an act of terrorism, breaching both Section 16 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, and the Firearms Act, were pressed against them.
According to Count One, the men were accused of jointly conspiring to assist a terrorist by agreeing and intentionally playing various roles towards conveying 15 AK 103 rifles as well as about 1,434 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunition from the Diffa region, Republic of Niger, to one Malam Ahmad, a member of the Boko Haram terrorist group based in Borgu, Niger State, and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
Primate Elijah Ayodele, is on the verge of coughing out a whopping N10billion, if he fails to offer unrestrained apology to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former Governor of Kano State within the next 24 hours, and retract his claim that the former Minister of Defence is bidding his time to betray Peter Obi, to whom he is to contest the 2027 presidential election as a running mate.
Without doing so, the controversial cleric, should be ready for a major court battle with the vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the platform on which the pair is to contest the election.
In a letter indicating a legal action against Ayodele of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church over defamatory remarks, Kwankwaso, through Magaji Mato Ibrahim, SAN & Co., his lawyers demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the cleric over the allegations.
Details of the letter, dated June 11, and unveiled through the X platform of the legal team, was based on a viral video recorded during a live-streamed church service, where the preacher made allegations targeting Kwankwaso’s integrity as Peter Obi’s running mate under the NDC.
Quoting the cleric as stating: “KWANKWASO IS A FAKE TO OBI, KWANKWASO WILL BETRAY YOU. KWANKWASO HAS BEEN PAID TO BE VICE PRESIDENT TO OBI AMONG OTHER LIBELOUS COMMENTS WHILE PRETENDING TO BE A PREACHER,” the former governor said the comments were unprovoked, grossly unfounded, and carefully designed to create a rift within the ranks of the political party and its supporters.
Handing Ayodele a 24-hour ultimatum to publish a full and unequivocal retraction across all social media platforms and news outlets with the same prominence as the original video, they also demanded a written undertaking that he would cease and desist from making any further malicious statements against their client, warning that failure to comply, would lead to full legal actions.
The letter stated: “We shall claim substantial damages to the tune of Ten Billion Naira and cost of the action on a full indemnity basis amongst other reliefs.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday demanded the immediate end to the exportation of minerals from countries in Africa in their raw forms, which he said had led to massive exploitation of the continent.
The President, told member countries of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), a forum of Ministers in charge of Mining and Solid Minerals on the continent to speak with one voice to promote, collective interests, ensure value addition, and prevent the continent from becoming merely a source of raw materials for the rest of the world.
As the Grand Patron of the group, chaired by Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, gave the charge while receiving a delegation of AMSG in the State House, Tinubu told the delegation that the group had a critical role to play in strengthening Africa’s bargaining power in the global mineral market and ensuring that the continent derives maximum value from its natural resources.
His words: “ What we should do is avoid bureaucracy and deceit; we must put an end to exploitation. The rest of the world won’t mind if your country is a cesspit of dams and rubbish and excavates your raw materials without giving value.
“It is our responsibility to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that these metals and minerals bring value to us, bring technology to us, and we can do it. It is how much each country will put into the research, development and refinery. I don’t see reasons we cannot demand centralisation of that conversation somewhere on the continent. So why not utilise that in our research and development and knowledge-based economy to enhance the quality of life and bring prosperity to our people.”
Emphasising that Africa possessed enormous mineral wealth that should be strategically harnessed to drive industrialisation, create jobs and accelerate economic transformation across the continent, the President, said the era of exporting raw minerals without local processing and beneficiation must give way to a new model that encourages investment in local industries, technology transfer and the development of value chains that retain wealth within Africa.
Alake, who had earlier expressed gratitude to the President for his exemplary leadership under the Renewed Hope Agenda, said the gesture had shown support for Nigeria’s mineral sector, especially in the local value-addition and economic diversification drive, where artisanal miners are empowered.
He told the President: “You encouraged us to look at the focal point of the establishment of this group, which is to ensure that the African natural resources, especially with regards to minerals, critical matters, are localised, the beneficiation coming directly to Africans generally.
“You charged us that we should set our sails very high and ensure that local value addition is a pivot around which all the objectives of this organisation should revolve.
“So, sir, we have gone implemented your charge and we are quitted that today local value addition is reverberating all over Africa.”
He added that some member countries have gone ahead to ban the export of raw minerals.
He explained members of the body were in Abuja for the Fifth edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit (AFNIS 2026), to push for a new continental approach to resource management and industrial development.
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