Jonathan’s supporters demand Jega’s resignation, poll shift

Supporters of President Goodluck
Jonathan have called for the
resignation and arrest of the
Chairman of the Independent
National Electoral Commission, Prof.
Attahiru Jega.
The supporters, under the aegis of
the Southern Nigeria Peoples
Assembly, led by a one-time
information minister, Chief Edwin
Clark, made the demand at a press
briefing in Abuja on Thursday.
Among those at the briefing were a
former Minister of Information,
Walter Ofonagoro; a former
Governor of Anambra State, Dr.
Chuwuemeka Ezeife; a former
Commissioner in Bayelsa State,
Chief Whisky Ayakeme; Dr. Cairo
Ojugboh and Senator Femi
Okunronmu.
The Jonathan supporters also
demanded the postponement of
the February elections.
They accused Jega of conniving
with northern leaders to rig
Jonathan out of the election.
For example, they alleged that Jega
had been hobnobbing with
members of the Northern Elders’
Forum.
Specifically, the group said that
Jega sent a representative to NEF
meeting under the leadership of a
former vice chancellor of a federal
university (name withheld) on
August 20, 2014.
They alleged that rigging methods
were discussed at the NEF meeting.
Clark and the others said another
meeting of the NEF held at Arewa
House, Kaduna, under the
leadership of a retired ambassador,
where the Clark’s group alleged
that it was agreed that “all avenues
must be explored towards
entrenching a president of
northern extraction in the
forthcoming 2015 elections.”
The Clark-led group added that a
committee was put in place 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.
Okurounmu, who read the
prepared speech by the President’s
supporters, said that NEF
distributed 150 units of laptop
computers to INEC for each of the
northern states.
He said the laptops were used by
the commission’s ad hoc staff in
collaboration with northern youth
activists during the Continuous
Voter Registration.
Okurounmu said Jega allegedly
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.”
He said this was responsible for the
near 100 per cent collection of PVCs
in the northern part of the country.
He said, “This is the reason why
Lagos State with a sophisticated
voter population of over 5.2million
has not distributed more than
2.5million PVCs; even the war
ravaged states in the North-East
have collected more PVCs than
most southern states.
“Is this kind of selective treatment
borne out of sheer nepotism and
primordial bias deserving of a
supposed impartial electoral
umpire?”
He added that investigations by his
group had revealed that funds
were being made available for the
northern operation of INEC by
governors of the All Progressives
Congress in the region, saying each
of the governors contributed
N100m and that “few Hausa-Fulani
irredentist PDP governors also
contributed N167m to perfect this
invidious electoral fraud.”
Okurounmu said that Jega must tell
Nigerians where the the decision
to award the contract for the
procurement of PVCs was taken and
when the contract was awarded.
He said, “Jega should and must
resign his appointment
immediately as the chairman of
INEC because he has lost the
requisite moral rectitude to
organise a credible election devoid
of shenanigans of the northern
elders forum and their cohorts.
“There should be immediate
postponement of the February 14,
2015 presidential elections to allow
for the reconstruction,
repositioning and reprocessing of
INEC to discharge its responsibility
of conducting an impartial election.
“We call for the immediate arrest of
Jega for criminals masterminding
the procurement of PVCs for under-
aged pupils in contravention of the
provisions of the 1999
Constitution.”
He said the group would “employ
and mobilise with all ounce of
energy at our disposal to ensure
that there is no election in any part
of southern Nigeria” if the Federal
Government failed to take decisive
action on the demands.
Chief Press Secretary to the
Chairman of the commission, Mr.
Kayode Idowu, said he had no
comment to make on the issues.
But a source at the commission
dismissed all the allegations,
saying that the integrity of Jega
remained intact.