The Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega has said that the commission will fully co-operate with election tribunals and there will be no impartiality because the commission is not working for any political party.
There have been some allegations concerning INEC Officials and party chieftains collaborating to change evidence presented to election tribunals.
Jega made this statement during a retreat for State Resident Electoral Commissioners at Le’Meridian and Golf Resort.
He said “INEC is law-abiding and we fully obey instructions of tribunal. When a tribunal says election materials should be inspected, we do everything possible to make it easy for the contending parties to inspect the materials.
“And if there are specific cases where delay occurs, there must be legitimate reasons for the delays. But we don’t work for any political parties as INEC.”
Jega also commended the commissioners for the sacrifices they made to ensure that the 2015 elections were successful.
He said “I want to commend you for all the good work you have done, which certainly was responsible for the success of the 2015 general elections. We had worked very hard, we had worked tirelessly; we have had to make enormous sacrifices in order to get the outcome that we had got. And one of those sacrifices was the untimely death of one of us, the electoral commissioner of Kano State, Abdullahi.
“These are sacrifices we had to make for our country because, as Nigerians, we want our country to progress and to develop, and we want the process of governance to satisfy the needs and aspiration of our people. We had been called upon to do our bit and we gave it our best.
“I wish to start by congratulating all Resident Electoral Commissioners for a job well-done and for contributing to the success in conducting 2015 general elections.
“We had worked very hard, we had worked tirelessly; we have had to make enormous sacrifices in order to get the outcome that we had got.
“What we need to do and this is the opportunity this retreat offers, is for us to review what we had done from 2011 to 2015 and in particular, focus attention on areas of improvement.
“I think this is the very important feedback we need to give to the next commission and to those who will remain to continue to contribute to refurbish electoral process and deepening democracy in our country.
“I am happy about what we had done, and of course, I am bowing out because my tenure has expired. We all have tenures, and once our tenure expires, we all leave and other persons will come.
“We have repeatedly said that the elections were not perfect, and no elections have ever been perfect, but the last general elections were highly successful, but we are doing this retreat in order to assess what we did so that we can continue to improve, because there is still room for improvement.
“So, we are happy that we had been given the opportunities to do 2011 and 2015 general elections, and we are also happy that the outcome had been generally commendable. We hope the next commission will keep on doing a better job than what we had done.”
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