The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Joash Amupitan, has denied operating an X account allegedly used to express support for President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress during the 2023 general election.\n<\/p>\n
Amupitan also disclosed that the matter had been reported to the Department of State Services and the office of the Inspector-General of Police and an independent report has been obtained over the controversy.\n<\/p>\n
He spoke on Thursday during a dialogue at Chatham House in London, organised in partnership with the Kimpact Development Initiative, with the theme, \u201cNigeria\u2019s 2027 Elections: Democratic Trajectory and Regional Stability Beyond the Ballot.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Responding to a question on whether an independent investigation had established that he was not behind the account, the INEC chairman said, \u201cWe have an independent report and the matter was also reported to the DSS as well as to the IG.\u201d<\/p>\n
He insisted that he had never operated an X account, explaining that his attempts to contact the social media platform to address the allegation were unsuccessful because he was not a user.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI never had an X account. I tried to get in touch with X, but there\u2019s no way if you don\u2019t have an account,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
He added that some civil society organisations had also indicated interest in investigating the allegation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have my Yahoo mail. I check Yahoo mail. It was never my account. And that is the truth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Amupitan added that the controversy emerged around the time of a court ruling concerning the African Democratic Congress and the interpretation of the status quo ante bellum order.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember the background. That issue came up when the court ruled that ADC had an issue, and the concept of status quo ante bellum. I don\u2019t want to go back into it. But at the same time, it came about that time,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
He suggested that the timing of the controversy was part of attempts to discredit him and undermine the electoral commission, adding, \u201cThe only way that people could bring down an institution was to say, \u2018Oh, this person.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The INEC chairman also dismissed other allegations previously made against him, including claims that he was a member of the legal team of Tinubu and that he had made false claims about his educational background.\n<\/p>\n
He said investigations by the DSS and the police had established that the allegations were unfounded.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were several accusations before then. For instance, that I was a member of the legal team of the President, that I said I went to school, but that is not true. They were investigated and discovered not to be true. So there were also investigations from DSS, from the police. And those things were not true,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Amupitan expressed confidence in the commission\u2019s preparations for the 2027 general elections, saying the exercise would be one Nigerians would be proud of.\n<\/p>\n
The controversy followed allegations that an X account bearing the handle @joashamupitan belonged to the electoral chief and had expressed support for the APC during the 2023 general election.\n<\/p>\n
The account reportedly replied to a post by former APC National Youth Leader, Dayo Israel, celebrating the party\u2019s victory in a predominantly Igbo community in Lagos, with the words, \u201cVictory is sure.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The development raised questions about Amupitan\u2019s impartiality as chairman of the commission responsible for conducting Nigeria\u2019s elections.\n<\/p>\n
However, INEC had dismissed the allegations as fabricated and intended to undermine the credibility of the chairman and the commission.\n<\/p>\n
In a statement issued on April 10, 2026, the chairman\u2019s Chief Press Secretary and Media Adviser, Adedayo Oketola, said fraudulent accounts had allegedly been created in Amupitan\u2019s name to mislead and defraud members of the public.\n<\/p>\n
INEC said it was working with security agencies and cyber-intelligence units to identify those behind the suspected impersonation.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, an investigation by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, republished by FactCheckHub, reportedly found similarities between partially hidden email and phone details displayed by X for account recovery and contact information associated with Amupitan.\n<\/p>\n
The report, however, noted that conclusively establishing who operated the account would require access to records held by X, including login history, IP addresses and device information, which were not publicly available.\n<\/p>\n
INEC\u2019s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Lawrence Bayode, had also said the commission was yet to obtain verified forensic evidence linking Amupitan to the account and was considering an independent forensic examination.\n <\/p>\n
Source: <\/p>\n
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Joash Amupitan, has denied operating an X account allegedly used to express support for President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}