In the gilded annals of Nigeria’s democracy, where irony often dons the robes of reward, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s latest largesse has landed like a thunderclap wrapped in velvet.
On this very day, as the sun rises over Aso Rock, the commander-in-chief has bestowed the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) – a national honour reserved for the nation’s steadfast pillars – upon Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the outgoing Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Yakubu, whose second term expires in a puff of procedural smoke, steps down not into obscurity but into the glow of presidential gratitude, his decade-long stewardship hailed for “sustaining Nigeria’s democracy through the organisation of free and fair elections.”
Tinubu’s words, scripted by his special adviser Bayo Onanuga, paint a portrait of unblemished excellence: courage, integrity, and digital wizardry like the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), all in service of a “transparent and credible” process.
But let’s peel back the veneer, shall we? In the court of public memory – and the Supreme Court’s unyielding gavel – this CON isn’t a crown of laurels; it’s a garland of gall, more fittingly rechristened the Commander of National Rigging (CNR). Yakubu didn’t just oversee elections; he orchestrated the 2023 presidential spectacle that catapulted Tinubu into the Villa, a victory declared in the witching hours of March 1 amid a cacophony of cries from Lagos to Abuja.
Opposition titans Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of the Labour Party didn’t mince words: the poll was a “rigged charade,” a betrayal of the 93 million registered voters who turned out in paltry 27% numbers, only to watch their ballots vanish into the ether of glitches and ghost uploads.
Videos of ballot-snatching in Rivers, voter intimidation in Lagos, and over-voting phantoms in Tinubu’s Ekiti stronghold flooded the feeds – dismissed by Yakubu with the casual wave of “less than accredited voters,” as if arithmetic could exorcise the apparitions.
Ah, but the BVAS – that promised panacea of biometric balm – became the election’s tragic farce. Meant to upload results in real-time from polling units to IReV, it sputtered like a generator in a blackout, leaving millions staring at blank screens while state-by-state tallies trickled into the National Collation Centre like contraband.
Obi’s camp alleged hacks; Atiku’s decried “breaches of the Electoral Act” and INEC’s “collusion” with the APC machine.
Even as Tinubu’s 8.8 million votes (a mere 37%) edged out Atiku’s 6.98 million and Obi’s 6.1 million, the air reeked of sleight-of-hand: provisional results from all 36 states and the FCT funneled through a process so opaque it prompted walkouts and Supreme Court petitions that, alas, upheld the “winner.”
Yakubu, perched at the podium in the early hours, intoned: “Tinubu, having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner.”
Satisfied? The law, perhaps; the people, decidedly not.
This honour, then, is no mere pat on the back; it’s a presidential wink, a tacit toast to the maestro who rigged the rhythm so Tinubu could waltz into power.
Appointed in 2015 by Buhari and renewed in 2020, Yakubu’s tenure was bookended by polls that smelled of the same smoke: the 2019 off-cycle that greased APC gears and the 2023 extravaganza that turned Nigeria’s “credibly flawed” democracy into a punchline.
Critics, from civil society watchdogs to Obasanjo himself, bayed for a rerun – fraud, violence, and a turnout thinner than a politician’s promise.
Yet here we are, in 2025, with Tinubu – the self-anointed “Jagaban” – draping Yakubu in CON finery, as if digital debacles and disputed declarations were deeds of derring-do.
It’s the ultimate irony: a man accused of puppeteering the people’s will now pinned with a medal for “democratic consolidation.”
One can’t help but chuckle at the choreography. Yakubu’s exit letter, dated October 3, gushes gratitude for the “profound privilege” of service.
Tinubu, in turn, directs a handover to May Agbamuche-Mbu, the senior commissioner, buying time for a successor search – perhaps another architect of “free and fair” fictions.
But this CNR in disguise? It’s a signal flare to 2027’s horizon: meddle with the mandate, and the Villa’s vault awaits.
For the opposition, still licking 2023’s wounds, it’s salt in the sieve; for the masses, a reminder that in Nigeria’s electoral theater, the house always wins.
President Tinubu, if this is your valediction to Yakubu, spare us the saccharine. Rename it what it is: the National Rigging Honour, awarded to the umpire who bent the beautiful game. Nigeria’s democracy didn’t thrive under his watch; it survived – scarred, skeptical, and seething.
As Yakubu fades into honoured sunset, one question lingers: In a nation where honours honour the honoured few, when do the people get their due? The ballot box weeps, but the CON gleams on.
Pamela O. writes from Lagos.
