……………. Jega denies allegations to rig elections
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, emphatically declared yesterday that the results of today’s Presidential poll would be announced on Monday, some 48 hours after the election.
Jega, who disclosed this during a joint press briefing with the Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig. Gen. Johnson Olawumi in Abuja, assured that the commission has everything necessary to facilitate a hitch free exercise.
He said unlike previous exercises when it took several days to collate and sought out the votes before results were announced, the chairman of the commission said efforts would be expedited especially with the use of technology to ensure results are released soonest.
Jega said that the use of the card reader and the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) will make it easier for the commission to conduct an election that will be free, fair and credible in line with international best practices even as he equally used the opportunity to clear the air on an allegation by some politicians that he was planning to aid the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), insisting that the card reader contrary to the allegation has no master key but a security chip which can only be breached when the card is cut.
Also, he revised the earlier decision that voters should vote and go home noting instead that they could stay for the result to be announced provided they would do so peacefully. This revised the initial directive from the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Suleiman Abba that people should go home after voting, adding that the IGP’s comment was only advisory.
The INEC boss also revealed that the elections will take place in all the 119,973 polling units across the country even as he added that there is no polling unit with more than 750 voters because where that occurs they should be broken into voting points.
Meanwhile, Jega in a statement by his chief press secretary, Kayode Idowu, noted with dismay, a front page advertorial by a faceless group in some national newspapers on Wednesday, March 25, 2013, alleging a plot by the chairman of the commission to rig the 2015 general elections.
The statement read “the group cited the constitution of a presidential election result collation committee by the INEC Chairman as the basis for its allegation that a plot to rig the election has been hatched.
“INEC would not have bothered to respond to such patently cynical and malicious allegation, but for the fact that the elections are days away and otherwise respectable national newspapers have lent themselves to be used as platforms to disseminate such falsehood. Any misinformation, – even as baseless as in this particular case – unless corrected could mislead innocent or undiscerning members of the public and cause unnecessary apprehension about the credibility of the electoral process.
“The Commission affirms that the allegation to manipulate or rig the election is completely false and baseless.
“The Chairman of the Commission as the Chief Electoral Commissioner of Nigeria and the Returning Officer of the presidential election, has statutory and legal powers to constitute administrative committee(s) to facilitate the performance of his duties.