2015 Elections: The Forces Against Jega

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headed by Professor Attahiru Jega recently succumbed to pressure from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by postponing the 2015 general elections which were earlier scheduled for February 14. Sunday Trust provides an insight into the travails of the Commission and the forces working against its Chairman, Professor Attahiru […]

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headed by Professor Attahiru Jega recently succumbed to pressure from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by postponing the 2015 general elections which were earlier scheduled for February 14. Sunday Trust provides an insight into the travails of the Commission and the forces working against its Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega.

GOODLUCK Lagos Grassroots Project, an amorphous pro-Jonathan campaign group,  has been an unrelenting force in the sustained media campaigns targeted at the Professor Attahiru Jega-led Independent National Electoral Commission INEC in the build up to the 2015 general elections. On Thursday,  February 5, 2015 the faceless group ran a full page colour advert in some national dailies which read: “2015 General Elections… 26 Million Nigerians May not vote!” The advert ended with the poser: Is INEC really READY for this Election?”
Following the eventual postponement of the elections, which were earlier scheduled to commence with the presidential poll on February 14, similar advertorials graced the pages of some national dailies. One of such adverts sponsored by the PDP Presidential Campaign Organization in The Vanguard of Thursday February 12, 2015 raised questions concerning the Permanent Voter Cards which it said Professor Jega must answer. The advertorial which was the fallout of a press conference read in part: “Professor Jega failed to tell Nigerians the whole truth that underpinned the postponement, thus providing the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) a questionable platform to accuse us of complicity in the decision to postpone the election…”
Even with the postponement, the GOODLUCK Lagos Group returned to its drawing board to release more anti-Jega advertorials in some national dailies.  One of such adverts carried under the title: Prof. Jega’s Records of Postponements Due to Poor Planning”, reeled out dates in the past during which the INEC under Professor Jega had sought for postponement or shifted election dates. “We are therefore not surprised by this latest Jega-drama. We are only miffed at the Prof’s flimsy excuses. Jega, the BUCK stops at your desk”, the advert reads.
Apart from newspaper adverts INEC equally came under a barrage of attacks from other sources including security agencies, the presidency as well as the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It was the National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, who first flew the kite of postponement during his presentation at the Chatham House in London where he raised the issue of distribution of permanent voter cards by INEC.
Apparently taking a cue from Dasuki, The Director-General of the PDP presidential campaign organization, Senator Ahmadu Ali, expressed doubts over the readiness of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct the forthcoming general elections. At a press conference in Abuja, Senator Ali had also faulted the distribution of the permanent voter’s cards by INEC and said the failure of the commission to carry out voter education on the use of card readers was another source of problem for the elections.
“In terms of voter education, INEC should be blamed. There is none of you here that has seen the card reader demonstrated publicly. Have you? You see that is where the problem lies. If you the elite in the media have not seen where they trained their personnel to see how this thing is going to operate how do we and ordinary Nigerians know how it is going to operate?”
The Presidency was not left out in the pressure against INEC for the shift in the polls. For instance, following the briefing by the Independent National Electoral Commission chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega to the Council of State, the presidency said it was convinced that the commission may not be able to conduct elections as earlier scheduled.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe who released a document at a news briefing he tagged “Field Report” to support the Presidency’s position,  argued that in 2003, 2007, and 2011, elections were held in April and the hand over date was not affected.
Challenging the All Progressives Congress to tell Nigerians what dangers the change of the February 14th date would portend for the electoral process or to the electorate, Okupe said:  “In his presentations to the council, the INEC chairman stated clearly that for the electoral process to be free, fair, and credible, there are other matters which are not under the control of INEC principal among which is the issue of provision and guarantee of security of lives and properties.”
Similarly the Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNPA), led by the Ijaw national leader and a former federal Information commissioner, Chief Edwin Clark also joined in the pressure on the Professor-Jega-led INEC to shift the polls. The SNPA leaders, whose loyalty to President Jonathan is not in doubt, called for the resignation and arrest of the INEC boss for allegedly hobnobbing with members of the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) in order to rig the polls.
 Demanding the postponement of the February elections, they alleged that Jega directed the release of “Permanent Voter Cards in their catchment states to emirs, district heads and top politicians and not necessarily to the voters themselves,” adding that this was responsible for the near 100 per cent collection of PVCs in the northern part of the country.
They also claimed that a committee was put in place by NEF to liaise with the INEC chairman and some Resident Electoral Commissioners in the states to favour the North in the creation of additional polling units.
The NEF, through Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, had dismissed the allegations as false.

The Inside story
According to a reliable source in INEC, the commission was very prepared to go ahead with the elections on February 14 and 28 in spite of the pressures mounted on Prof.  Jega to postpone the elections based on the distribution of PVCs.
The source who declined to speak on record because he is not authorized to do so said the greatest pressure on the commission was coming from The Presidency. According to the source, the service chiefs and other security stakeholders met the dummy to shift the polls on grounds of insecurity, adding that it was based on the outcome of the meeting that the NSA proceed to the Chatham House, London, to publicly fly the kite.
The source also informed Sunday Trust that political parties were split on the matter, adding that those who voted in support of the shift during their meeting with the INEC boss had previously met with the leadership of the PDP where a ‘deal’ to support the shift was struck.   
According to our source there was pressure on Jega to resign soon after the postponement of the elections were announced, but he had refused to budge.
The plot, according to our source, also entailed using the EFCC or some other state agencies to persecute Jega and create the necessary distraction and grounds for him to be removed from his office and by the time he is cleared of any wrong doing, the elections would have held under the stewardship of someone “who will do their bidding to the use of Temporary Voters Card and he will set aside the use of card readers,” the source said.
“But Jega has nothing to be afraid of. Jega does not have the powers to unilaterally award contracts because everything has to be approved by the commission which is made up of 12 National Commissioners; the majority of who have to agree before any decision is taken, whether on awards of contracts or postponement of elections,” the source said.
But Jega is highly thought of within INEC as a “hardworking, intelligent, result-oriented and highly respected person. People are afraid of taking anything illegal to him.”
Certain of no wrongdoing whatsoever, Jega refused to budge to the pressures and so those who wanted the election postponed had to come up with another ploy, hence the letter from the service chiefs essentially refusing to provide security for the elections, which would totally compromise the integrity of the process and the safety of the election officials and the electorate.
The source said the presidency and the PDP were bothered by the safeguards Jega had introduced, such as the PVCs, card readers and customised ballot papers that would ensure that there is a proper audit of every single vote cast. “The ruling party is seeking to take advantage of the four million cases of multiple registration that the PVC has weeded out of the system, as well the lack of audit to use leftover ballot papers at the polling units,” the source said.
The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Organisation (APCPCO), in a press release signed by Malam Garba Shehu, its spokesman, at the weekend, frowned at the Presidency and PDP’s strident and scurrilous castigation of the use of Card Readers for ensuring the integrity of the forthcoming general elections, as being proposed by INEC, as the PDP’s agenda for the manipulation of the electoral process.
The statement said this latest ploy by the ruling PDP and the Presidency was the precursor to the move to stampede the resignation of Professor Attahiru Jega before the appointment of a pliable lackey, who will do the hatchet job of stopping the use of the Card Readers.
Shehu notes that the INEC’s decision to use the Card Readers was borne out of the need for ensuring electoral transparency and integrity.
“Aside the huge financial investment involved in the procurement of the Card Readers, the PDP’s desire to hoodwink the Nigerian people on this anti-rigging device, is not just subterranean but an affront on the independence of the electoral body.
“We are equally aware that this is the latest gambit of the ruling Party in its desire to thwart the electoral wishes of majority of Nigerian electorate. We are aware also of the use of its tested and well-oiled rigging machine of unregistered voters and accentuation of same by the use of soldiers that had been specially trained and reserved for that nefarious purpose.
“We insist that the use of Card Readers for authenticating the propriety of the Permanent Voters’ Cards presented and ultimately, accreditation of Voters, as envisioned by INEC. These, in our estimation as a credible Party, remain the irreducible minimum that must form the basis for the conduct of free, fair, and credible elections on 28th March and 11th April, 2015.
 
CSOs rebuff pressures on INEC
Some Nigerians, including civil society organizations, have criticized the pressure brought to bear on Jega’s INEC, especially against the backdrop that this is the first time such was coming from the ruling party rather than the opposition.
 The Chairman of the Civil Society Network against Corruption (CSNAC), Mr Olanrewaju Suraj, advised the INEC chairman to remain steadfast, focus on the electoral process and ensure credible election on the new dates.
 “To the best of my recollection, this is the first time in our democratic history that members of the ruling party would accuse the electoral umpire of bias and unfair treatment. It was only a military regime (IBB transition) of 1993, which had not committed to its own transition programme that ever came close to the present situation under President Jonathan.
“Interestingly and sadly though, the many actors in the Babangida cum Abacha regimes are prominently connected and playing active role in this government. The Presidency, through the National Security Adviser flew the kite at a conference in Chatham House, London. This was unconstitutional and tantamount to treasonable felony. The service chiefs also conferred a role, beyond its constitutional duty, on itself with that unprecedented security alert letter to the INEC chairman. The declaration of inability to secure the country during elections by the service chiefs at the last Council of States meeting was tantamount to treason and the chiefs should have resigned from their office with immediate effect”, Suraj said.
He said the failure of the president to caution “reckless accusations” of his friends and supporters was an indication of the presidency’s conspiracy theory against INEC.
Also speaking on phone, the Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Mr. Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), described the campaigns against the electoral body as premeditated and a coup against its constitutional role.
Musa said, “The shift was based on a premeditated and concocted security measure to postpone the elections when we know that the government had three years from 2011 till date to deal with security. It is now when it gets to elections; when the political parties have successfully organized primary elections; when they have successfully carried out presidential rallies even in the troubled states in the North-East, that they are now using the insurgency as a basis for postponing the elections,” he said.
For a social critic and former Police Commissioner, Abubakar Tsav, the ruling PDP resorted to blackmailing INEC into shifting the polls because of the rising profile of the presidential candidate of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).
“While the opposition candidate was addressing issues that concern Nigerians during his campaigns, the PDP spent its time criticizing Buhari, thereby increasing his popularity. Having realized that their chances were getting slimmer by the day the PDP resorted to putting pressure on the INEC chairman to shift the polls,” Tsav said.
Tsav also said the video clip on the alleged rigging of the Ekiti governorship election which is currently in circulation had also put the ruling PDP on high jump. “The situation now calls for Buhari’s support and the corrupt people in government are afraid of Buhari’s determination to end corruption,” he said.
But the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said there was no pressure of any sort on it to shift the polls. The Chief Press Secretary to the Commission’s chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu said the Commission took its decision after considering certain realities, hence it did not amount to pressures.
On the anti-Jega campaigns and advertorials being sponsored in the media even after the postponement of the election, Idowu said: “INEC cannot join issues with political parties; we do not have scores to settle with anybody over such advertorials which could have come from anybody.”