Council of State may discuss poll shift tomorrow
February 4, 2015
President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan
| credits: File copy
The calls for the postponement of
this month’s general elections may be discussed during
Thursday’s(tomorrow) Council of State meeting convened by President
Goodluck Jonathan.
The council consists of the
President, the Vice-President, all former Presidents or ex-Heads of
State, all former Chief Justices of Nigeria, the President of the
Senate, all state governors and the Attorney-General of the Federation.
One of the key responsibilities of the
body is to advise the President in the exercise of his powers with
respect to the Independent National Electoral Commission, including the
appointments of members of the commission.
Proponents of the polls’ shift had hinged
it on the inability of INEC to distribute enough Permanent Voter Cards
to registered voters. The call is widely believed to be engineered by
the Presidency, which though had denied the charge.
INEC had however insisted that there would be no postponement of the elections.
The PUNCH however learnt from a
Presidency official in Abuja on Tuesday that the Council of State
would review the preparations for the elections by INEC and the relevant
security agencies.
He said that information available to
the government showed that contrary to the claims by the Chairman of
INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, the commission was not yet ready for the
elections.
For example, the official claimed that
INEC only awarded the contract for the printing of ballot papers for the
February 14 presidential election last Monday.
He wondered how the ballot papers would be made ready before February 14 which is the first day of the polls.
The official said, “The truth of the matter is that if urgent step is not taken, Prof. Jega may end up ridiculing this country.
“Available information shows that the commission is not set for this election contrary to Jega’s claim.
“We learnt he actually summoned a meeting
recently with a view to postponing the election but he is scared of the
opposition who have been kicking against such.
“This Thursday (tomorrow) meeting will definitely review INEC’s preparations and take a stand.”
Another Presidency source also informed The PUNCH that Jonathan might use the opportunity provided by the meeting to garner support for the postponement of the polls.
“The Presidency is not resting on its
oars concerning the plan to shift the elections. It is already in talks
with some members of the council,” he said.
On what the Presidency would do if the
plan fails, he replied, “we would opt for another plan, which is to
return to the drawing board; plan a new strategy on how to deal with our
opponents.”
To underscore the importance Jonathan
attaches to the meeting, his re-election campaign rally earlier billed
to hold on Thursday in Yenagoa, the capital of his home state, Bayelsa,
has been put on hold.
It was gathered that the rally might hold later in the day if the meeting ended on time or be shifted to Friday.
The PUNCH has however learnt
that some of the proponents of election postponement might have
perfected plan to ensure that Jega did not return as INEC chairman if
their plan materialises.
A week-long investigation by one of our
correspondents showed that the Presidency was waiting patiently for INEC
to yield to the pressure before coming out with its real plan for
Jega.
It was gathered that the Presidency and
the ruling Peoples Democratic Party were not ready for the elections and
believed that their chances could be affected if the elections were
held as scheduled.
Because of this, the Presidency, backed
by some hawks in the PDP, are said to be waiting for an auspicious time
to ask the INEC chairman to proceed on terminal leave. His tenure
ends on June 9, 2015.
The PDP source said, “The plan is to
discredit the election by forcing postponement. When this is done,
sponsored people and groups would start asking for the sack of Jega.
“At this point, the government would then
say because of this, he should proceed on terminal leave and then ask
the most senior national commissioner to take over and conduct the
election.”
Jega’s nomination as INEC chairman followed approval by a meeting of the Council of State.
Jonathan had said then that he had never known Jega, a former chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
Jega’s candidature for the job was said
to have been facilitated by a presidency top official, Hassan Tukur, who
is from Adamawa State.
Parties disagree on postponement
Indication that the 26 registered
political parties are divided over the calls for the postponement of
the elections emerged in Abuja with 16 of them and five presidential
candidates in support.
They told a news conference on Tuesday that they would boycott the polls if their opinions were not respected.
The parties include the United Democratic
Party, the Citizen Peoples Party, the Peoples Party of Nigeria, the
Action Alliance, the Peoples Democratic Congress, the Labour Party; and
Unity Party of Nigeria.
Others are the Alliance for Democracy,
the Democratic Peoples Party, the New Nigerian Peoples Party, the
Peoples Party of Nigeria and the Independent Democrat.
The five presidential candidates at the briefing were Godson Okoye, Sam Okoye, C.O Allagoe, Tunde Anifowose and Ganiu Galadima.
The political parties said, “We the
concerned leaders of political parties have observed some dangerous
trends, which if not checked may negatively and adversely affect our
democracy.”
The political parties premised their
argument for the postponement on security, distribution of PVCs and
people deserting their places of abode for their villages.
Okoye, who spoke on their behalf, called
on the Federal Government to take necessary steps to provide adequate
security for Nigerians to go out and collect their PVCs in order to be
able to exercise their civic and constitutional duty.
He called on INEC to consider shifting the date of elections to sometime in March or April.
“We are not urging INEC to do anything
that is unlawful, illegal or unconstitutional. It is unfortunately
becoming clear by the day that most Nigerians appear not to be ready for
election but are ready for violence,” he said.
He also flayed the United States
Secretary of State, John Kerry, for meeting with only the
presidential candidates of the APC Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and
Jonathan in Lagos.
But at a different news conference, the
presidential candidate of the United Progressive Party, Chekwas
Okorie, condemned the call for the postponement of the elections.
Okorie described the call as a “mischievously contrived clamour.”
He said, “The reasons given by the
proponents of the postponement that a great number of Nigerians will be
disenfranchised having not been given their Permanent Voter Cards which
will enable them to participate in the election is a contrived reason
and to a large extent pedestrian.
“As we speak, over 80 per cent of
registered voters have received their PVCs according to latest figures
released by INEC and this may increase to 90 per cent or above after the
close of distribution of PVCs on February 8 2015, as planned by INEC.”
Meanwhile, INEC has distributed 977,727 out of the 1,494169 PVCs received by its Ondo State office.
The state Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Segun Agbaje, disclosed this to journalists in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said that the distribution of the cards to all the Local Government Areas in the state would end on Saturday.
Agbaje said,”We are preparing very well
for the elections as we ought to do in line with the provisions of the
Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).
“All non-sensitive materials would be
deployed in the LGAs before the end of the week as security arrangements
for their movement are almost concluded.
“We received 1,494,169 PVCs out of
which we have distributed 977,727, representing 65.4 per cent, remaining
516,442 representing 34.6 per cent.”
On other preparations for the
elections, Agbaje said, ‘‘The training of electoral officers had been
completed while that of Supervisory Presiding Officers started on
February 2 and will end on February 4.”
According to him, the training of Presiding Officers and Assistant Presiding Officers will be between February 6 and 8.
He added that INEC in the state had set
up an Election Day Operations Situation Room to directly receive
complaints and enquiries from voters, observers, journalists and the
general public on the days of the elections.
