Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant
on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, has stated that democracy
in Nigeria would have collapsed if Attahiru Jega, former Chairman of the
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, caved in on the pressure to
deny President Muhammadu Buhari victory in the 2015 presidential election.
Shehu, stated this while
appearing on a special end of the year programme ‘2019 End Of A Decade’ on
Channels Television.
Shehu maintained that there was a
move by the then ruling party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to seize power.
He said: “We thank God for Jega
and the civil society activism at that time because if Jega had caved in, this
democracy would have collapsed at that time.
“So, it is an interesting time
that we had lived through and then, it tells a story of the resilience of our
democracy and that we shouldn’t just toy with it. It didn’t come cheap, it
didn’t come easy.”
The Presidential spokesman
disclosed that the All Progressives Congress, APC, officials had monitored the
election exercise closely.
“For us in the situation room at
that time, it was an attempt to grab power or to hold on to power by regime
elements or beneficiaries of the system who saw defeat staring them in the
face.
“Before those results got to the
INEC chairman and he announced them, you are aware that parties had
representatives at the lowest of the point; the polling units and the local
councils, and the states.
“They did a collation of their
own and they had a sense of how or which direction things were going. So, it
was obvious to those regime elements at that time that the regime was falling,”
he said.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users