As Sambo Says The AGF’s Credentials Are On Trial
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Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, CGoF, and Arise News Director of News, Sumner Sambo, have responded to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s public defence of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s neutrality, with Odinkalu arguing that a presidential defence of the Commission’s independence is itself evidence that the independence does not exist, and Sambo insisting that it is not the President’s place to tell Nigerians whether INEC has been fair.
President Tinubu made the remarks at the State House in Abuja while receiving a delegation from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, who had urged him to ensure free and fair elections and to strengthen democratic institutions ahead of the coming electoral cycle.
“All is fair in politics. And it’s equal opportunity. I think you mentioned they’re neutral. They’ve never, never intimidated anybody. If political opponents are crying wolf, maybe they’re afraid of their own shadows and the uncertainty in the company they keep. Not me,” the President stated.
Prof. Odinkalu’s response, posted on X, was brief and pointed.
“If you have @officialABAT asserting and defending the ‘neutrality’ of @inecnigeria, that is an assurance that the Commission lacks neutrality and independence,” Odinkalu stated.
The argument is structural rather than factual. An institution that is genuinely independent of the executive does not require the executive to vouch for it, and would ordinarily be expected to speak for itself. Where the President becomes the public guarantor of the electoral umpire’s neutrality, the relationship between the two is precisely the relationship that independence is designed to prevent.
Arise News Director of News, Sumner Sambo, made the same point in a different register.
“It’s not in the place of President Tinubu to tell Nigerians that INEC has been fair or not. It’s for Nigerians to see it,” Sambo stated.
“Nigerians need to see fairness from INEC. INEC needs to distance itself from the government or people close to the government so we do not have a situation where people misread pronouncements from the president,” he added.
Sambo directed his sharpest criticism at the Attorney General of the Federation, arguing that the party deregistration case has placed the credentials of the country’s chief law officer under scrutiny.
“In this specific case that we are talking about, I think Nigerians should be hard on the Attorney General of the Federation, because his credentials as Senior Advocate of Nigeria and the number one law officer of the country are being called into question here. He went to court and admitted to this same judge that these five political parties ought to have been deregistered,” Sambo stated.
He then set the AGF’s position against what the appellate court subsequently said.
“Now look at what his seniors are saying at the Court of Appeal. That this case did not merit any, it did not have any worth to be listened to in the first instance. So that’s questioning the integrity, the credentials of the Attorney General of the Federation, the number one person that advises not only Mr President, but the entire government of the Federation, saying that, look, there seems to have been a miscalculation on his part. The Attorney General did not give the appropriate advice,” Sambo stated.
Sambo’s most damaging observation concerned the divergence between INEC’s own position and the position taken by the AGF’s office.
“Even INEC, which is the one that registered political parties, said, no, these political parties have met the threshold, they’ve won elections. But you decided to go and say, no, that they didn’t. And then you back,” Sambo stated.
The point identifies an inversion in the ordinary sequence of institutional conduct. The electoral commission, which possesses the records and the statutory responsibility for determining whether a party has met the constitutional performance threshold, told the court that the parties had met it. The Attorney General, whose office is the government’s legal adviser rather than the custodian of electoral records, took the opposite position before the same judge.
“So these are the sort of things that we see every now and then. And in this instance, INEC should try to distance itself from the government, or people close to the government, so that we do not have a situation whereby people misread this sort of pronouncement from the president,” Sambo stated.
Sambo noted that the Commission’s position in the current cycle has been anything but quiet.
“Everybody knows clearly that INEC has been in the eye of the storm as regards these issues of the political parties. We are waiting to see the last ones, which have to do with the NDC and the ADC with Nafiu Bala Gombe. And we’ll wait to see,” he stated.
Sambo closed with a warning about what may follow if the litigation removes a major opposition platform from the 2027 ballot.
“Because if, for example, NDC is not going to be on the ballot for the election, imagine the political consequences, the security consequences. But that’s almost like where we’re heading to,” Sambo stated.
The President’s remarks have produced a predictable split.
Administration officials and supporters have pointed to the comments as evidence of executive confidence in non-interference and institutional stability, and as a direct response to the Catholic Bishops’ appeal for free and fair elections.
Critics and civil society figures have taken the opposite view, arguing that a sitting president publicly certifying the neutrality of the electoral body he is constitutionally separate from does not reassure the public but does the opposite, undermining trust in the agency’s actual independence.
The remarks were made at the State House, Abuja, during the President’s meeting with the delegation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria.
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