Revealed: Plot to abduct Jega during presidential poll

Fresh facts have emerged on the
March 31 attempt by a former
Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder
Godsday Orubebe, to scuttle the
announcement of the March 28
presidential election results.
The main part of Orubebe’s action,
according to Reuters on Thursday,
was a plot to use hired thugs to
kidnap the Chairman of the
Independent National Electoral
Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and
consequently stall the electoral
process.
The news agency quoted unnamed
pro-democracy advocates and a
Nigeria-based diplomat as saying
that one of Jega’s aides unearthed
the plot.
It said that the aide had sent a text
message to an independent voting
monitor, “warning of an imminent
threat to the electoral process.”
Reuters said it pieced the
information together from the text
message, events on the ground
during the announcement of the
results and interviews with pro-
democracy advocates and
diplomats in Abuja.
It added that when the
independent voting monitor sent
the SMS, he hoped the outside
world would hear of the plot and
the text of the message .
“Fellow countrymen, Nigeria on
Trial,” read the SMS sent on the
morning of March 31 to the head of
the Situation Room, an Abuja-based
coalition of human rights groups
and pro-democracy advocates
monitoring the elections.
“Plans are on storm [sic] the
podium at the ICC Collation Centre
and disrupt the process. Nobody is
sue [sic] what will happen. Please
share this as widely as possible,”
the text read further.
At that moment, Jega was about to
preside over the announcement of
the results.
As tallies from around the country
showed that the All Progressives
Congress candidate, Muhammadu
Buhari, was leading, “unidentified
PDP(Peoples Democratic Party)
hard-liners started to panic,
seeking ways of manipulating the
count,” the boss of the Situation
Room and the diplomat said, citing
political contacts in the Niger Delta
and Abuja.
Realising they could not engineer
an outright win, the PDP agents
set about doctoring the tally at
collation centres in pro- (Goodluck)
Jonathan areas to ensure Buhari
failed to meet a requirement for 25
per cent support in two-thirds of
the states, the head of the Situation
Room said, citing reports from
election monitors on the ground.
Reuters said its reporter witnessed
and photographed one tally list in
Port Harcourt, Rivers State with
suspiciously similar totals for
registered voters at polling
stations: 500, 500, 500, 500, 500, 500,
500, 500, 450.
In another tally centre in the city,
17,594 valid votes were recorded
out of a registered voter
population of 11,757, the Reuters
reporter said.
Foreign election observers also
noted the peculiarities – and
contacted diplomats in Abuja who
called in international intervention.
The United States Secretary of
State, John Kerry, and his British
counterpart, Philip Hammond, who
were in Switzerland for talks on
Iran – issued a tough statement
saying vote counting “may be
subject to deliberate political
interference.”
But as Buhari’s lead grew, some
PDP supporters from the Niger
Delta, including Orubebe, decided
on a final gamble: to create a
disturbance in the main INEC hall
and have “thugs snatch Jega from
the stage, Reuters quoted the Head
of the Situation Room and the
Abuja-based diplomat.
What the group planned to do after
the abduction was unclear, they
said.
“It was a desperate thing, mostly by
a group of people from the Niger
Delta who were in the room,” the
Situation Room head said,
describing events that unfolded
publicly in the minutes after he
received the SMS.
When Jega opened proceedings on
the morning of March 31, Orubebe
had grabbed a microphone and
launched into an 11-minute tirade
accusing Jega of bias.
“Mr. chairman, we have lost
confidence in you,” he shouted,
pushing away officials trying to
make him surrender the
microphone. “You are being very,
very selective. You are partial,” he
continued, surrounded by three or
four supporters. “You are tribalistic.
We cannot take it.”
At this point, according to the Head
of the Situation Room and the
diplomat, Jega’s security details
were approached by unidentified
individuals telling them to stand
down but they declined.
“Some of the guards who had been
guarding Jega for years demanded
a written order,” the Head of the
Situation Room said.
Jega later rebuked Orubebe, saying,
“Let us not disrupt a process that
has ended peacefully,” he said as
Orubebe slumped in his chair.
“Mr. Orubebe, you are a former
minister of the Federal Republic.
You are a statesman in your own
right. You should be careful about
what you say or about what
allegations you make,” he said.
Orubebe later congratulated Buhari
on Twitter, expressing his
“apologies to fellow Nigerians.”
Orubebe did not respond to
requests by the news agency for
comment on the details of the plot.
INEC, said the news agency, also
declined to comment and turned
down requests for an interview
with Jega,
Reuters however said it found no
evidence to suggest that Jonathan,
who accepted defeat in the
election, was involved in the plot.
The Chief Press Secretary to the
chairman of the commission,
Kayode Idowu, told our
correspondent that he was not
aware of the alleged plot to kidnap
Jega.
Idowu said, “I think somebody is
imagining here. The chairman was
not aware of any such plan, he
didn’t conduct any investigation to
know that. He was not under such
threat during or after the
announcement.’’

ohh good....