{"id":21052,"date":"2025-10-17T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/?p=21052"},"modified":"2025-10-17T12:12:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:12:52","slug":"will-inec-shield-political-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/will-inec-shield-political-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"INEC Under Fire: Is It Quietly Shielding Political Agendas?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"\"><strong>ABUJA, Nigeria (FN)<\/strong> \u2014 Nigeria\u2019s nominee to head the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has signaled hesitation over proposals for the federal body to take control of local government elections, warning that such a move could overwhelm the already stretched commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Professor Joash Amupitan, nominated by President Bola Tinubu to lead the electoral umpire, made the remarks during his Senate screening on Thursday. While acknowledging widespread calls for INEC to assume responsibility for local polls \u2014 currently managed by state electoral commissions often accused of bias and manipulation \u2014 Amupitan cautioned that the shift could create logistical chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"360\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-129.png?fit=650%2C360&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21053\" style=\"width:577px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-129.png?w=650&amp;ssl=1 650w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-129.png?resize=300%2C166&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThis issue has been debated widely,\u201d Amupitan said. \u201cMany believe INEC should take over because of what is happening in the LGs. But is it not going to add another burden on INEC if we are to conduct elections in over 700 local governments?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Critics say state-run local elections are routinely rigged in favor of ruling parties, undermining democracy at the grassroots level. Civil society groups have long demanded INEC\u2019s intervention to restore credibility, but successive administrations have resisted the change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Amupitan\u2019s comments suggest the federal government may be reluctant to disrupt the status quo, despite growing pressure. \u201cWe\u2019ll examine the option,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it\u2019s not something I have answers to for now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The nominee\u2019s equivocation has sparked concern among reform advocates, who fear that INEC\u2019s independence could be compromised under political pressure. His confirmation is pending Senate approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ABUJA, Nigeria (FN) \u2014 Nigeria\u2019s nominee to head the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has signaled hesitation over proposals for the federal body to take control of local government elections, warning that such a move could overwhelm the already stretched commission. Professor Joash Amupitan, nominated by President Bola Tinubu to lead the electoral umpire, made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-naija-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Professor-Joash-Ojo-Amupitan.jpg?fit=850%2C550&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21052"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21128,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21052\/revisions\/21128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}