Rivers Polls: We Lack Power To Cancel Results – Jega

8 years ago

Rivers Polls: We Lack Power To Cancel Results – Jega

The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, has said that the commission lacks the power to cancel results of elections after returns have been made.

Jega spoke yesterday at the Civil Rights Situation Room in Abuja. He added that the commission sent three national commissioners to investigate allegations of irregularities in Rivers State after it received petition to that effect.

According to him, the reports submitted by the team did not show any irregularities in the election.

He said “We have no power to cancel elections results once returns have been made.

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“On the petition against election irregularities in Rivers State, the commission sent three national commissioners to the state to investigate the allegations and found no irregularities in the election in the report. Some people don’t want elections to hold, they are the ones calling for cancellation.

“We investigated the allegation of fake result sheets in Rivers and our reports showed that there was nothing like that.”

Answering question on whether he will accept the offer if he is re-appointed as INEC boss, Jega replied that he will not accept it as he would want to do something else with his life.

The INEC boss further stated that the commission is in partnership with the police and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to prosecute electoral offenders.

He noted that one offender had been prosecuted in Adamawa State and sentenced to six months imprisonment for illegal possession of permanent voter cards (PVCs).

He, however, called on whoever has evidence as it relates to electoral offences to bring such to the commission, saying that such errant individuals would be investigated and tried in court.

On the forthcoming governorship rerun poll in Abia State, Jega said that the rerun will hold only in the wards where election was cancelled and not in the entire three local governments.

Jega further stated that about 20,000 permanent voters card (PVCs) were not produced before the election on the grounds that the producer was arrested by the police over allegation that he gave the password to a political party.

“Evidently, some people did not want us to use the card reader machine. That was why we allowed manual election in some few places where the card reader did not function well during the Presidential election.

“Some people had already saying that we deliberately deployed card reader machine that will not in some zones and to prove them wrong, we instructed that manual voting should take place in such places. But some people want to take the advantage of that.

“But during governorship elections, we ensured that all the card reader machines worked. We have earlier sent warning to all the RECs that they will be held responsible for any card reader that did not work properly”, he stated.

Earlier, the convener of the Situation Room and Executive Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre PLAC, Clement Nwankwo had on behalf of the Civil Societies congratulated Jega and INEC over the success of the elections.

He however noted that Situation Room had raised concern over Rivers, Abia and Akwa – Ibom elections.

He also noted that there were complaints about some of the State Resident Electoral Commissioners ?as it relates to their relationship with politicians in their various states.