Ambassadorial List: Don’t Confirm Yakubu, African Democratic Congress Tells Senate

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has derided the latest ambassadorial appointments by President Tinubu describing the nominees as a settlement list of political favours.

The opposition party particularly asked the Senate to reject the appointment of the immediate-past chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, as an ambassador.

The party claimed Yakubu’s appointment, barely two years after supervising the election that brought President Tinubu into office, would lend credence to the allegation that the former INEC chief may not have been a neutral umpire in the 2023 election and could further undermine the credibility of the electoral commission.

President Tinubu last week sent the names of 32 ambassadorial nominees to the Senate for confirmation, days after he sent the first batch of three names.

In two separate letters to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, President Tinubu asked the Senate to consider and confirm 15 nominees as career ambassadors and 17 nominees as non-career ambassadors.
There are four women on the career ambassadors’ list and six women on the non-career ambassadors’ list.

Among the non-career ambassador designates are Barrister Ogbonnaya Kalu from Abia, a former presidential aide, Reno Omokri (Delta), former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmud Yakubu, former Ekiti first lady, Erelu Angela Adebayo, and former Enugu governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.

But ADC’s national publicity secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, said at a time when INEC faces a “major credibility crisis” following the highly disputed and controversial 2023 general election, Yakubu’s nomination for an ambassadorial position sends a dangerous message.

The ADC spokesman, in a statement, argued that it is in Yakubu’s best interest to reject what it described as a “brazenly insensitive” nomination and urged the Senate to reject it as a measure of restoring confidence in the nation’s electoral process.

The party spokesman said that after more than two years of waiting, President Bola Tinubu presented an “outrageously underwhelming” ambassadorial list that appears designed to settle his political IOUs rather than fix Nigeria’s urgent international relations crises.
Abdullahi added that at a time that Nigeria needs a disciplined and credible diplomatic corps, capable of rebuilding the nation’s collapsing credibility on the continent and the rest of the world after two years of thoroughly damaging absence, President Tinubu has surpassed himself by presenting a comic cast of political jobbers, corruption suspects, and patronage of wives, children, and relatives of political associates.

The party however said Yakubu’s appointment is at the heart of this troubling list. Yakubu conducted the election that brought Tinubu in as President of Nigeria.

The ADC said Yakubu’s pick is embarrassingly insensitive, coming barely two years after supervising a “highly controversial election that ushered in Tinubu as president and only a few weeks after leaving office as INEC Chairman.”

ADC noted that Yakubu’s appointment blurs what should be a distinct line between players and umpires.

It added that If allowed to stand, it would set a dangerous precedent where future INEC chairmen and commissioners may begin to see their positions as stepping stones to future political rewards.

“Once that mindset enters the bloodstream of our electoral system, neutrality becomes impossible, partisanship becomes inevitable, and elections become transactional.

“A cursory review of the list would show that almost all the nominees fall into three categories: former career diplomats or ambassadors, political supporters or their relatives, and members of the president’s political party. We wonder in which of these three categories Prof. Yakubu belongs. The implication of this is deeply unsettling indeed.

“We are aware that there is no stipulated “cooling off” period under our laws, but even when the law is silent, ethical standards must be upheld, especially when the situation attacks the very foundation of our democracy.

“We therefore call on Prof. Yakubu to do the patriotic thing and reject this appointment for the sake of INEC’s institutional credibility, the integrity of future elections, and the preservation of his own legacy. Failing to do so, we call on the Senate to reject his nomination in the interest of our democracy,” the ADC said.