Presidency: Why February polls not feasible

  The Presidency has explained why it feels that February may not be feasible for the general elections. The Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe, at a press conference in Abuja on Friday, released a document he tagged “Field Report” to support the Presidency’s position. Before reading the report, Okupe said the Presidency […]

 

The Presidency has explained why it feels that February may not be feasible for the general elections.

The Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe, at a press conference in Abuja on Friday, released a document he tagged “Field Report” to support the Presidency’s position.

Before reading the report, Okupe said the Presidency wished to recollect that in 2003, 2007, and 2011, elections were held in April and the hand over date was not affected.

He challenged the opposition to tell Nigerians in clear terms, what dangers the change of the February 14th date portends to the electoral process or to the electorates, saying” It will also be good if the opposition tells us who stands to benefit or be disadvantaged from any shifting of date and how”.

Okupe also noted that Jonathan was neither interested nor engaged in any form of subterfuge to pressurise the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to change the dates of the 2015 elections.

The presidential aide said it would be very reassuring if the INEC could get its state Resident Electoral Commissioners to attach their state of readiness to a sworn affidavit and show it to Nigerians.

Okupe claimed that Jega mulled a shift of the elections during Thursday’s Council of State meeting to perfect the electoral processes and the INEC’s readiness for the elections.

“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 were not under the control of INEC principal among which is the issue of provision and guarantee of security of lives and properties”, Okupe said.

He stressed that at no time during the meeting did Jega insist that the elections must hold on the Feb 14th and 28th 2015 as reported in the media, noting that Jega gave the council a report on the progress so far made by the INEC on its preparedness for the elections.

“In all his submissions, the only process that was 100% concluded was the preparation and availability of the voters register. All other processes including provision, distribution and collection of PVC’s, printing of ballot papers, distribution of verification machines and other non–sensitive materials, recruitment and training of adhoc staff were as at 5th February 2015 all ‘works in progress’; with some assurance that all will be ready on or before 14th of February 2015. The chairman also mentioned clearly that given a little more time INEC would be in a better position to perfect these processes and its readiness for the 2015 Elections”, he said.

Okupe said security chiefs were unanimous in their advice to the council that it would be impossible, for now, for them to guarantee security of electoral materials, INEC staff, and the voting population in the areas currently engulfed by the war against insurgency.