THE job of Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is without doubt one of the most crucial assignments for the success of democracy. And in that office, Prof. Attahiru Jega has enjoyed so much goodwill. He came in, in the wake of a general election generally acknowledged as the worst in the history of modern elections, which produced a president who described himself as a product of a “flawed election”.
And Jega’s predecessor in office, Prof. Maurice Iwu, who superintended over the electoral disaster bowed out of office in circumstances entirely unsalutary, having been excoriated by all and sundry, including the beneficiaries of the charade. In order to salvage the situation and redeem a terribly bad image created by the flawed election, it became imperative to rejig the electoral commission as a way of giving credibility to subsequent elections. Only a man of proven integrity and popular appeal would be good enough to be charged with the responsibility of overseeing the electoral commission. It was against this background that Jega, one-time president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), became an acceptable, even promising choice.
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