Dr. Abel Guobadia (2000-2005)
Following Akpata’s death in 2000, then President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Dr. Abel Guobadia, a US trained Solid State Physics expert also from Edo State, as INEC’s second chairman.
Guobadia conducted the 2003 elections, which recorded a higher turn-out than those of 1998/99 but were, however, marred by widespread violence other irregularities.
Surprisingly, Guobadia retired as INEC chairman in May 2005, becoming the first chairman of an electoral commission since Nigeria’s independence in 1960, to complete his tenure. Such feat was only recorded again in 2015 by Professor Attahiru Jega.