…says commission won’t cancel Rivers’ elections
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it erred cancelling elections in three local government areas of Abia State.
Attahiru Jega, INEC chairman, stated this on Tuesday in Abuja at a dialogue session with Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, a coalition of over 60 civil society organisations.
This is his first meeting with civil society groups after the general elections.
Jega, however, explained that the commission intervened before a return was made, adding that supplementary elections will only hold in wards where results were cancelled.
“The announcement of cancellation of three local government areas was a mistake. And we intervened before a return was made and it was corrected. And only the wards where irregularities occurred in those three local government areas were to be cancelled. And the supplementary election we are going to do will not cover the entire local government areas but only those wards that had been cancelled,” he explained.
There had been uproar in some quarters following INEC’s decision to declare the April 11 governorship polls in Abia, Imo and Taraba states inconclusive. The commission had therefore fixed April 25 as date for supplementary elections in the three states.
He explained that contrary to claims by some politicians, the commission has no power to cancel the election in Rivers State and called on aggrieved political parties to approach the tribunal to seek legal redress.
“The law says once the returning officer has made a declaration then you just have to go to the tribunal to contest the declaration,” he said.
He stated further that there are no evidences to change the resident electoral commissioners (RECs) in Imo and Taraba states. He, however, said the commission would beam its search light in both states and would also deploy more electoral officials to those states.
His words: “I have no evidence before me to warrant changing the resident electoral commissioners in Imo and Taraba states.
“But we are going to do what we did in Ekiti and Osun. We will send a lot of supervisors, national commissioners, directors, just to ensure that a lot of eyes are put on what goes on in these states. Hopefully that can minimise a lot of irregularities and also make our field officers know that their actions are being observed.
“There were a lot of allegations that RECs were compromised. I was accused of being compromised. Frankly, we can’t just start moving RECs and changing them because there are allegations if there is no substantive evidence presented. Anybody who didn’t like the way things stand out would want the returning officers or RECs removed. But we can’t just start indiscriminately removing people unless we have something to hold against them”.
The INEC boss revealed that there will be electoral reforms to strike a balance between decentralising and centralising the powers of the commission at the national headquarters.
