How ex-INEC Chairman, Jega disappointed me in 2015 – Goodluck Jonathan

The immediate past President, Goodluck Jonathan despite conceding defeat after the 2015 Presidential election ha expressed disappointment with how the then Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Attahiru Jega conducted the election.

This revelation was contained in a book written by the Chairman of THISDAY editorial board, Segun Adeniyi.

In the book which will be launched on Friday, Adeniyi quoted the former President as saying Jega disappointed him.

The former President also said he had a meeting with Jega to express his reservations about the preparedness of INEC for the exercise, but the ex-INEC Chairman maintained that the election would go ahead as scheduled.

According to Jonathan, “I was disappointed by Jega because I still cannot understand what was propelling him to act the way he did in the weeks preceding the election.

“As at the first week in February 2015 when about 40 percent of Nigerians had not collected their PVCs, Jega said INEC was ready to conduct an election in which millions of people would be disenfranchised.

“Of course, the Americans were encouraging him to go ahead yet they would never do such a thing in their own country. How could we have cynically disenfranchised about a third of our registered voters for no fault of theirs and still call that a credible election?”

“The interesting thing was that the opposition also supported the idea of going on with the election that was bound to end in confusion,” the former president said.

The book which was seen by TheCable quoted the former President as saying security reasons was responsible for the postponement of the election.

“When the military and security chiefs demanded for more time to deal with the insurgency, the reasons were genuine.

“As at February 2015, it would have been very difficult to vote in Gombe, Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.

“But the moment all the arms and ammunition that had been ordered finally arrived, the military was able to use them to degrade the capacity of Boko Haram to the level in which they posed the threat to the election,” he said.