PROFESSOR Attahiru Jega, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was upbeat yesterday when he spoke to journalists in Abuja. He declared that the INEC he chairs is ready to conduct a not-business-as-usual kind of election from Saturday.
Jega stated at Yar'Adua Centre that INEC could announce any final results within 48 hours even as he said that the 870, 000 cases of multiple registration that has been discovered would not affect the sanctity of the voters' register.
Speaking on his personal safety, Jega declared: "I am not worried about my safety, about my life. If I were afraid about my life, I would not have accepted this job. I am a believer. In my religion, there is predestination... what will happen to me has been predestined.
Jega, a former vice chancellor of Bayero University, Kano (BUK), said: "We in the INEC are ready and prepared. We can look at what we have been doing in different phases. We have done restructuring. We have improved election management. In doing this, we are careful so that we don't get involved in what is called disruptive restructuring. We have put square pegs in square holes. We have looked at the existing structure and put it properly. We have not tampered with the structure we found on ground. We have been strengthening capacity, removing duplication of duties among departments."
Speaking on perception challenge, Jega noted that "people have accused INEC before. We try to deal with perception. INEC members of staff are perceived to be fraudulent. We have found out that majority of the members of staff are just victims of circumstance. There are a few bad eggs that created that negative image for the commission. That is what we have found out. But henceforth, we will not tolerate any kind of misconduct, bad behaviour.
"Whoever is not ready to abide by new work ethics in the commission will have to look for work elsewhere...We get the people to have that kind of mindset and attitude. I assure you, we will be law-abiding. We will be accountable. We are ready. We will not tolerate the behaviour of those bad ones.
"We have done a lot of changing of attitudes. We have done our best in bringing improvements through persuasion, workshops, trainings and sanctions. Beyond that, we have established a good data-base that Nigerians can be proud of. We have finger-prints, addresses and telephone numbers. This is a formidable national asset. I would like to say it is not perfect. We have to do a clean-up. There are cases of double and multiple registration. The new accreditation we have introduced will make it difficult for such people to come out on the day of election to vote".
Jega, who said INEC had learnt a lot of lessons from reputable election management agencies around the world, added: "We are ready for the elections. We have introduced security measures in our bases correspond to the polling unit to prevent stealing of ballot boxes. We have recruited ad-hoc personnel needed for the election. We needed about 10,000 official staff. We have drawn polling units staff from the NYSC. We are working very closely with the armed forces, which are working closely with us. They are helping us in terms of deploying materials."
He noted, however, that "there may still be on the voting day a few places where personnel and materials may not arrive on time. We are doing our best to work on this. In general, we expect voting to commence at noon. In those places, we will know in advance. We are doing our best to overcome these challenges. We have held a series of meetings with our own workers to learn from their field experiences".
On judicial ambush, the former Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) president, said: "We have complained to the judiciary about the abuse of ex-parte orders.
Ex-parte orders are to prevent irreparable damage. Hopefully, there will be improvement in the post-election process."
Commenting on crowd control on election day, the INEC boss noted that "the issue is challenging but we have been dealing with the security agencies to overcome this. The army will not be at the polling unit. It is not a good practice. The army will only come in to assist the paramilitary if there is need. We have been working with the security agencies on a new platform. It's been very useful and helpful to avoid inter-agency rivalry.
"All security agencies have been provided extra fund to take care of their logistics. There is still concern about security and violence. Many of these can be attributable to unguarded statements by political leaders".
The INEC boss also spoke on the release of election results. "We have strengthened the process of election results. We brought new measures of insulating our officials. We have moved some of our personnel from their states to states where they are not totally alien
"We have deployed on experimental basis collation of results to know some results before they are officially collated. This is useful because if there is a fraud or violence in some areas, we will know in advance. All these will help to bring credibility to the process.
"We are targeting 48 hours for the announcement of results. Nigeria is a very vast country but we expect the result to be collated and announced within 48 hours. We have discovered 870,000 cases of double registration. We have accepted the assistance of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to start prosecuting these cases between now and Friday. A situation where the INEC headquarters will usurp the power of the authorised persons to announce results will not happen, except where an electoral official declared a false result. Even it is the court that will determine that. But I can assure you, it will not happen under this commission."
On possible cancellation of results like the June 12, 1993 saga, Jega said: "We are doing our best to ensure that courts do not indict us for what we are doing. We have told our officials that they will be responsible for any indictment by the courts. We have told our workers that they are on their own for any indictment. We will not defend the indefensible whether it is about observers or about our workers".
Asked to comment on his integrity and safety as the election begins, Jega smiled and declared: "I want to say categorically that I am not under any pressure. I have not been approached by anybody to do anything. I have not seen any pressure. I want to say that I have the capacity in all modesty to resist any pressure. I believe that I will not be susceptible to inducement. I am not under any pressure by anybody. As far as I am concerned, I am not bothered about this.
"Our officials have made an undertaking to carry out their jobs without fear or favour. There may be some of us who may want to do otherwise but I can assure you that if they do, they will have themselves to blame. But then I won't move anybody just because there is a pressure. I was misquoted when I went to the National Assembly on the issue of high-profile multiple registration and all that...
"The context then was: We have evidence in one state that a local council chairman did multiple registration. We have evidence in a state that some political party officials were involved in multiple registrations. I did not say a minister did multiple registration.
"We have set rules for observers and monitors. In the new rule, observers and monitors are different".
The structure of INEC whereby the chairman, the secretary and the director of logistics are from the core North also featured in the interview.
In his defence of the INEC structure, Jega cited the federal character challenge: "It is neither here nor there. I did not appoint the secretary. I met them there. I have no cause to remove them. We have structures to carry out functions. What are administrative secretaries for? There is a committee. When there are functions, they do what they are told to do. In our country, our people will make some comments about that kind of structure. But there is nothing to worry about".
Jega appealed to the media to consider national interest in their conduct during the polls. "Frankly, there are a lot of lapses by a lot of journalists covering elections who do not corroborate or find out from public affairs or the Chief Press Secretary. There have been some cases that have happened. It is very important that we do our work in a way that will not undermine INEC's work. We would not like journalists to get involved in announcing unauthorised results. Don't do that. Be careful. That may lead to violence. I am however happy that most of the journalists too are responsible, I mean they do their jobs with a high sense of responsibility."
Source: Jega explodes, says I'm not afraid for my life (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43323:jega-explodes-says-im-not-afraid-for-my-life&catid=1:national&Itemid=559)