Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega has said that the 2015 General Elections timetable is in line with global best practices and does not cater to any political or sentimental consideration.
He spoke after a presentation at the Chatham House on “2015 Elections in Nigeria: Expectations and Challenges”.
Jega said,
“Nobody has put us under any pressure. We did these things logically and rationally, in terms of what we considered best for our country.
“As far as we are concerned, the presidential election is not positioned first. What we did is that we combined the National elections; so, you can’t say that presidential election is placed first.
“Some Nigerians wonder why we can’t have all the elections in one day. It is true that in some countries, they conduct all their elections in one day.
“From our own assessment, the enormity of challenges associated with that is such that we are not prepared in the electoral commission to do all the elections in one day. But then, we felt that instead of having three elections, let us have two.
“In 2011, we had three: we did the National Assembly elections first; then, the Presidential; and then, the Governorship as well as State Assembly elections. But we felt that (in 2015); let us have two elections rather than three.”
He added: “Then we said: what is the best combination in line with global best practice? The global best practice is that you do national elections separate from state elections, if you can’t do all together. So, rather than have the Presidential and Governorship elections together, or the National Assembly with State Assembly elections, we said, let us have all the national elections together, and then the state elections.
“That is the logic, that is the rationale; and it is defensible. But you hear politicians make all manner of allegations; because in their own calculation, some people want certain elections to come first; others want it to come later.
“If you do not satisfy what they want, then they would start accusing you as if there is an interest being served, or that we came under some pressure. Nobody has put us under any pressure.”
“In 2011, we did voter registration in January/February. That was why the elections had to wait till April. But since we are not doing a fresh registration in 2015, we said let’s have the elections early in the period permissible, so that there will be more time before swearing-in, for litigation.”