He said an electoral officer in charge of the area sabotaged INEC’s preparations by allegedly withholding materials rather than distributing them.
Besides, he said the result sheets, which differ according to units, were jumbled up.
The commission had to take time to rectify the mix up, which resulted in the delays experienced, he said.
Jega said he suspected that the officer was induced by someone who wanted to subvert the process, adding that the alleged culprit has been handed over to the police for prosecution.
The INEC, chairman, who spoke on AIT during a programme on the election, which was monitored in Awka, said every effort would be made to get to the root of the alleged sabotage.
He said: “We made all the preparations and decentralised the process of distribution of materials in order to ensure that they get to the polling units in time for the commencement of the election. That was before Saturday.
“Unfortunately and regrettably – we are humans. We can do all the preparations, but if people are determined to subvert the process, one way or the other they will subvert it.
“So, they used our staff. I think we should be very careful when we have a staff of about 12,000 in INEC, when one person has committed an offence and then you use it to generalise or condemn everybody in INEC.
“Our Electoral Officer in charge of Idemili North Local Government, for inexplicable reasons, messed up the distribution of ballot box papers and result sheets. That was the cause of the delay in the distribution of materials in Idemili.
“All materials were to have been distributed by Friday evening, but for some odd reasons, they made sure that they held onto some of the result sheets, and they also gave wrong result sheets to different polling units.
“For Anambra election, as we did in Edo and Ondo, every polling unit has a unique result sheet. So, you cannot take one result sheet to a different place, because it will not work.
“I assured the stakeholders when we met in Awka that materials must get to the polling units before commencement of election.
“So, when we discovered at about 1am that there was this mix-up, and we tried to reach the Electoral Officer and the supervisor and there was confusion, and we knew something was fishy, we said there would be no deployment until we sorted out the problem.
“As I speak, we have handed over the Electoral Officer to the police because clearly what he did is a sabotage of the electoral process, including the Local Government supervisor.
“It took us until about 1pm to be able to sort out what they had jumbled up. We communicated with the community as at 1pm that we were ready to distribute to all the other wards, and materials were distributed.”
Jega said INEC officials consulted with the community before rescheduling the election, which the All Progressives Congress (APC) rejected. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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When would we get our act right in this country?
ReplyDeleteThis is a test run of what to expect come 2015 election. INEC you still have a lot of work to do.
ReplyDeleteThere should be full investigation and the saboteurs should be excluded and prosecuted.
It would be interesting to know which party they (saboteurs) belong to with the aim of getting them (the party and the culprits) banned from participating in this election. However, before we declare the election null and void, evidence of foul play should be investigated Eg the chieftain buying votes and trying to steer the outcome to favour a political party (TV News) etc. In my opinion, not all wards were affected by the malpractice and as such, a carpet cancellation of election in all wards would not be prudent. GHN
Most unfortunate. So is the prof telling us that we shouldn't expect good elections in future? If to conduct elections in just one state is becoming a problem, how much more of all the states at once when it comes to presidential elections? God save us.
ReplyDeleteBanana republic.
ReplyDeleteThis is where our security agencies would have been useful,every human being is prone to criminality but the judicial system is what will curb them unfortunately people get away with anything in nigeria therefore encouraging others to do the same cos they know "Nothing dey happen"cheers
ReplyDeleteTelling us you failed makes no meaning now because you planned your failure to favour your pay masters. If I may ask how many elections have your commission conducted since coming on board that you did not structure failure technique just to deceive your self? Tell us what will posterity remember you for? Perhaps that INEC chairman who dramatises election results with why they fail. Its unfortunate.
ReplyDeleteEven if America electoral chairman handle nigeria election he will not get it right we condem too much in this country nobody is higher learn...even if JEGAN want to rig it will favour PDP but where did u see or heard it that incubent governor fail election is very rear...if at all it happens not always bcs those who are still gaining under him we not want to loose bcs they will still have the majority
ReplyDeleteI don't see the reason to blame Jega. Blame the politicians who will do everything to win election even if it means killing all Nigerians. They have become so corrupt that they wouldn't want orderliness. It is going to be worse in 2015.
ReplyDelete