NO FURTHER SHIFT ON DATES FIXED FOR ELECTIONS - JEGA

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega yesterday ruled out a further shift in the dates fixed for the general elections.

The March 28 and April 11 dates remain sacrosanct, he said, promising that this year’s election will not only be better than that of 2011, but the best in the nation’s history.

Jega spoke in Abuja at a Dialogue Session held by a coalition of civil society organizations, under the aegis of the Civil Society Situation Room (Situation Room).

The INEC chairman said his agency was fully prepared for the election that “will meet the people’s wish and aspiration.”

“As far as we are concerned, we are fully prepared for the elections, and from what we have seen so far, there is no more fear of any further shift in the dates for the elections. So, elections would go on as scheduled on March 28th and April 11th.

“We have identified the gaps that needed to be filed and we have filed all those gaps. All the National Commissioners are now in the field to assess the level of preparedness; they are covering the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.

“We are very pleased to note that we used the six weeks period to firm up our preparations. If we had done the elections on February 14th, we would have done it with a collection rate of 67 per cent  of PVCs. But as at now, we have 11 states that have attained over 91percent  collections while most have attained over 80per cent  and above collection rate.

“We believe that the 2015 elections would be much better than that of the 2011. In fact we believe it would be the best elections ever conducted in this country.

“Yesterday I was able to brief the National Security Council on the remaining concerns, particularly as it affects protecting our staff and providing adequate security for the elections, and we were able to receive assurances that the security agencies are doing all they can to ensure that adequate security is provided.

We were told that it is only about three local government areas that are still being held by the insurgents. We are in collaboration with the security agencies to arrest known political thugs across the states to avoid a re-occurrence of the post election violence that occurred in 2011.

“This time around, we have planned to use a better facility for the collation of election results in Abuja. We have secured the International Conference Centre for that purpose, as it would be more spacious and conducive for that purpose. On the deployment of sensitive and non sensitive materials, we have no problems at all as we have done that successfully.”

The INEC Chairman added that public officers will not be allowed to move around during elections.

“We are going to insist that ministers and governors would not be allowed to move around with their retinue of security agents in the name of election monitoring.

“We did a comprehensive screening of electoral officers and we even dropped some. We have always insisted that electoral officers should not serve in their states of origin. We have tried to reduce the incidence of rigging.”

The Executive Director of Policy Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) and Coordinator of the Situation Room, Clement Nwankwo, said Nigerian were eagerly awaiting the election which is the only legitimate means of effecting leadership change.

“We are aware of the pressure the INEC chairman is going through, with calls for him to proceed on terminal leave when he is not terminally weakened,” Nwankwo said.

Clara Barnett of the British Department for International Development (DFID), who commended INEC for its efforts so far, assured of his agency’s continued support and collaboration with the Commission to ensure that democracy is deepened in Nigeria.