2015: INEC defends timetable •Says it’s not under influence

CHAIRMAN, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, in London, United Kingdom, at the weekend, stoutly defended the timetable for the 2015 general election recently released by the commission.

Professor Jega said the timetable was informed by rational and logical considerations and not sentimental or ulterior motivations as being speculated in some quarters.

This was contained in a statement signed by the chief press secretary to the chairman of the commission, Mr Kayode Idowu, copies of which were made available to newsmen in Abuja, on Sunday.

The statement quoted Professor Jega as saying that the commission was mindful of its operational effectiveness and global best practice in grouping national elections together on one day and state elections together on another.

The timetable, as announced two weeks ago by INEC, scheduled the National Assembly and presidential elections for February 14, 2015 and governorship as well as state assembly elections for February 28, 2015.

Jega, in the statement, made clarification while fielding questions from the audience, after a presentation he made at a forum at Chatham House, London.

Professor Jega dismissed suggestions that INEC was under external pressure in designing the election timetable the way it did, stressing that “nobody has put us under any pressure. We did these things logically and rationally, in terms of what we considered best for our country.”

The Chatham House event was a public forum at the instance of Africa Programme Unit of the organisation, which invited Professor Jega to make a presentation on “2015 Elections in Nigeria: Expectations and Challenges.”

On the rationale for the election schedules, the INEC chairman reportedly explained that the country was not up to having all the elections in one day and, as well, disagreed with suggestions that the elections were drastically re-ordered, compared with 2011.

According to Jega, “as far as we are concerned, the presidential election is not positioned first. What we did is that we combined the national elections, so you can’t say that presidential election is placed first.

“Some Nigerians wonder why we can’t have all the elections in one day. It is true that in some countries, they conduct all their elections in one day. From our own assessment, the enormity of challenges associated with that is such that we are not prepared for in the electoral commission.

“But then, we felt that instead of having three elections, let us have two. In 2011, we had three: we did the National Assembly elections first; then the presidential and then the governorship, as well as state assembly elections.

“But we felt that (in 2015), let us have two elections rather than three. Then we said: what is the best combination in line with global best practice? The global best practice is that you do national elections separate from state elections, if you can’t do all together.

“So, rather than have the presidential and governorship elections together, or the National Assembly with State assembly elections, we said: let us have all the national elec tions together and then the state elections.”

The INEC chairman added that the elections were slated for February 2014 to allow time for litigations before the commencement of new tenures.

The schedule, he noted, perfectly conformed to legal provisions requiring elections to be conducted not earlier than 150 days and not later than 30 days before the expiration of relevant tenures.