Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has accused Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), of undermining Nigeria’s electoral process since 2015.
Obasanjo made the remarks on Friday in his new book, Nigeria: Past and Future, published by the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library.
He expressed deep concern about Nigeria’s judiciary, saying it has become “deeply compromised” and that corruption among judges has turned Nigerian courts into “court of corruption rather than courts of justice.”
Obasanjo said on Friday, “No wonder politicians do not put much confidence in an election which the INEC of Professor Mahmood Yakubu polluted and grossly undermined to make a charade.”
The former Head of State warned that the judiciary’s integrity is steadily declining, and justice has become a commodity in Nigeria, posing dangerous consequences for the nation’s stability. He wrote: “The reputation of the Nigerian judiciary has steadily gone down from the four eras up till today. The rapidity of the precipitous fall, particularly in the Fourth Republic, is lamentable.
“The great fear of most well-meaning Nigerians and good friends of Nigeria is that where ‘justice’ is only available to the highest bidder, despair, anarchy, and violence would substitute justice, order, and hope.”
Obasanjo also shared an example to illustrate his point. On Friday, he recalled visiting a state in the North about ten years after leaving public office. He said: “Next to the government guest house was a line of six duplex buildings. The governor pointed to the buildings and stated that they belonged to a judge who put them up from the money he made from being the chairman of election tribunals.”