Jega scores RECs high, hopes for improved elections

INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, has said that he is happy about the successful conduct of the 2015 general elections, expressing the hope that there will be improvement in future elections.

Jega scored the resident electoral commissioners high, saying it was the sacrifice, hard work and tireless efforts of the RECs that resulted in the successful outcome of the polls as seeing by Nigerians.

He said that INEC sacrificed a lot to ensure the success of the elections, adding that one of the sacrifices was the death of the former Kano State REC, Alhaji Munkaila Abdullahi.

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Jega stated this in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, during the post-2015 general elections assessment retreat for RECs. The retreat held on Thursday with the theme, “2015 general elections: Lessons and way forward.”

The INEC chairman said the retreat offered the electoral officials the opportunity to review what they had done from 2011 to 2015 and to focus attention on areas where the commission needed improvement.

He said, “I congratulate all electoral commissioners for a job well done and for contributing to the success in conducting 2015 general elections.

“We had worked very hard and tirelessly; we have had to make enormous sacrifices in order to get the outcome that we had. And one of those sacrifices was the untimely death of one of us, the electoral commissioner of Kano State, Alhaji Munkaila Abdullahi.

“These are sacrifices we had to make for our country because as Nigerians we want our country to progress and to develop, and we want the process of governance to satisfy the needs and aspirations of our people.”

Jega, however, said that the states where the use of the card readers was suspended for manual accreditation for the governorship and state house of assembly elections breached INEC directives that on no account should manual accreditation be administered for both elections.

The commission chairman assured that the tribunal would look into the areas where card readers were jettisoned in favour of manual accreditation, saying there was a difference between using card readers and using incident forms.

He said, “What we meant by saying that card readers must be used was that we did not expect in any polling unit any person to say that the card readers were not functioning, and as a result opted for manual accreditation, no.

“We asked those who had experienced card readers’ failure to come back the following day, assuring them that we would replace the card readers for the election to take place.”