The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Yakubu Mahmood is advocating the award of a posthumous national honour to the late chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC) Humphrey Nwosu.
Mahmood made the call on Monday at the INEC headquarters in Abuja during an ‘Afternoon of Tributes’ in honour of Nwosu who conducted the annulled June 12, 1993, presidential election.
“A quarter of a century (25 years) later in June 2018, the presumed winner of the 1993 Presidential election, Chief M. K. O. Abiola, received the highest national honour, the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR), posthumously.
“His running mate, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, was conferred with the second highest national honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON). The date of the election (June 12th, 1993) has been gazetted as a national holiday and appropriately named as Democracy Day,” the commission’s chairman said during the event.
“Sadly, the electoral commission that conducted the election which was personified by Professor Nwosu received only a muffled commendation as if no one conducted the election. Surely, the election did not conduct itself. It was organised by a Commission made up of Commissioners and a Chairman. If it was an oversight that Professor Nwosu was not honoured in his lifetime, it is never too late for the appropriate authority to do so posthumously.”
INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, National Commissioners, Special Aides to the Hon. Chairman of INEC, and former Senior INEC staff celebrated Prof. Humphrey Nwobu Nwosu, who was the Chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC)
The INEC chief extolled the late Nwosu whom he said introduced several reforms and “had the arduous task of managing elections in an extremely challenging context”.
“He introduced many innovations in election management” and several “reforms to election management”.
“His tenure is synonymous with the Open Ballot System popularly referred to as Option A4 in which voters queued up behind the symbol of the party of their choice to vote and to be physically counted,” Mahmood said.
Nwosu, born on October 2, 1941, died on October 24, 2024.
