INEC erred cancelling elections in 3 LGs in Abia – Jega

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it erred cancelling elections in three local government areas of Abia State.

INEC Chairman, Attahiru Jega, 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 governments 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 governments were to be cancelled. And the supplementary election we are going to do will not cover the entire local government 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 respectively. 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.

He explained: “In future reforms to electoral legal framework this issue has to be looked at carefully. It’s a delicate balance: you have to balance whether you will give the Chairman of INEC or the INEC at the headquarters a lot of powers which may be abused or whether you will want to localise the powers which may also be abused. So, it’s a tricky balance and the balance has to be struck.

“Clearly, from our experience in 2007 a lot of the powers were removed from the INEC national and localised to the Returning Officers. And now we are seeing the challenges and some abuses in some respect. So, in future, as we review the Electoral Act, we may have to look at how to have some balance in this regard.

“Sometimes when we hear something and a mistake is likely to be made we can intervene and advice the Returning Officer about the right thing to do. Sometimes some of the Returning Officers if they are confused and do not understand what they are supposed to do, they can call us directly and seek for clarification. And we have done a lot of clarifications which avoided mistakes for being made. But there are few cases a Returning Officer may just go ahead and do his own thing either based on lack of misunderstanding or because of some partisan considerations.

“There are many Returning Officer for example in some states where they disappeared with the result sheets. And we have got information about these people and we are going to follow it up in terms of not only reporting them to their institutions but also prosecuting them appropriately for the offences they committed”.

Jega also said prosecution of individuals and electoral officers found culpable in the just-concluded 2015 general elections have commenced.

According to him, those who are being prosecuted include a former Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) as well as Youth Corps members.

While saying that the Commission will pay attention to high profile electoral offenders, he called on the public to furnish the Commission with evidence of electoral breaches.

His words: “Prior to the conduct of the elections the Inspector General of Police was very proactive and established a Committee headed by a DIG to work together with INEC for speedy prosecution of electoral offenders. And we believe that this will help us have more prosecution of electoral offenders than in previous elections.