Ephraim Akpata
| Ephraim Ibukun Akpata | |
|---|---|
| 1st Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission | |
|
In office 1998 – January 2000 |
|
| Preceded by | Sumner Dagogo-Jack |
| Succeeded by | Abel Guobadia |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 15 April 1927 |
| Died | 8 January 2000 |
Justice Ephraim Omorose Ibukun Akpata was the first chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of Nigeria, responsible for the 1998/1999 elections that re-introduced democracy in May 1999.
Ephraim Akpata was born in 1927 in Edo State. He attended King's College, Lagos and went on to study law. In his book 888 Days in Biafra, Samuel Enadeghe Umweni recollects how Lawyer Akpata twice made the dangerous journey across the front lines to visit him while he was held prisoner by the breakaway Biafran troops during the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970). Akpata became a justice of the Supreme court, retiring in 1993 at the age of 65. He was appointed to head the INEC in 1998 when General Abdulsalam Abubakar's Administration established the INEC to organise the transitional elections that ushered in the Nigerian Fourth Republic on 29 May 1999.
To avoid splits along ethnic lines, Akpata stipulated that only parties with broad-based national support would be allowed to contest the elections. He ruled that political parties must win local government electoral seats in at least ten states to qualify for the gubernatorial, state assembly, national assembly and presidential elections. Of 26 political associations, he gave provisional registration as political parties for the 1998/1999 elections to only nine, with only three parties finally qualifying to compete in the State and National elections. This caused the formation of coalitions of smaller associations, such as the Group of 34 which formed the new People's Democratic Party (PDP).
Coalitions had to become genuine parties. In January 1999 Akpata said that the electoral alliance announced between the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and All People's Party (APP) "appeared to contravene INEC rules". He said the two parties wanted to "derive the benefits of a merger without going through with one". Akpata was critical of the process through which the PDP selected its candidates, saying it fell "short of the level of transparency expected from a democratic process."
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