INEC’s Failed Vendor to Face ‘Judicial Sanction’

Posted by admin Elections 2011, Latest Politics, Top Stories Monday, April 4th, 2011

The vendor who caused the fiasco that greeted the National Assembly elections last Saturday will face “judicial sanction” for breach of contract, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced.
The commission blamed late arrival of materials for the postponement of the elections which has now affected the other polls.
INEC is still keeping the identity of the vendor secret but the Chief Press Secretary to the chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, told journalists in Abuja Monday that the erring vendor would face the necessary sanction for breach of contract as stipulated in the contract terms.
Idowu said the identity of the vendor was being kept secret because his principal, Professor Attahiru Jega, does not believe in media trial of someone who is going to face judicial trial.

Also, he said Jega does not want attention to be taken away from the main issue which is getting the elections right on Saturday.
He disclosed that beside the lack of supply of materials, the commission had identified some pitfalls from last Saturday’s aborted polls and was working to ensure that everything was properly put in place for this weekend.
When asked if all the materials for Saturday’s election had actually been supplied to the commission, he assured in the affirmative and said they had been delivered to the states.

On whether or not the shift was creating some problems to the commission in terms of funding, Idowu said that if such existed the commission would say so to the appropriate quarters.
He also refused to say if the commission would pay the youth corps members and ad hoc staff for last Saturday’s aborted poll as most of them had already been mobilised for the day’s duty.
According to Idowu, the commission was not losing sleep over the exposure of sensitive electoral materials in some states before the cancellation because the materials were released to designated officers and they are serialised, meaning the security was already taken into consideration.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, played a key role in thwarting the plan by INEC to go ahead with last Saturday’s elections without the use of the official result sheets.
THISDAY gathered that by the morning of the day, INEC officials nationwide already knew that the materials, especially result sheets, were not available but instead devised a lie of telling the electoral officials to go ahead with the accreditation and voting, promising that the result sheets would arrive before the completion of voting.
While some states collected the incomplete materials and proceeded to conduct the elections in the belief that the remaining materials would come later, others refused.

Edo State was the first of such states to refuse all the materials, insisting there would be no elections without the result sheets.
THISDAY learnt that Oshiomhole did not stop there but went on a street protest march, trekking from Jatau to Auchi, a distance of about five kilometres, shouting to the people to refuse any incomplete material as they were part of the rigging plans of the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The newspaper was told that it was one top staff of INEC who phoned Abuja to report that the situation in Edo was becoming embarrassing to the commission. It was then directed that the state should suspend the elections.
Immediately after the elections in Edo was suspended, other states and FCT got to know and then suspended theirs without clearance from the head office.

Because it was Oshiomhole himself who led the protest, the police and other security agencies were helpless in trying to stop it.
Meanwhile, Jega has assured Nigerians that exposed ballots used during last Saturday’s botched National Assembly elections could not be re-used this weekend when the parliamentary elections take place.
Addressing members of civil society organistaions monitoring the April elections, under the auspices of The Nigeria Election Situation Room, Jega said because of the in-built security features, there was no possibility of unscrupulous people being able to make use of them to carry out their nefarious activities.

Although the meeting was held behind closed-doors, the Nigeria Election Situation Room issued a statement which was signed by Clement Nwankwo, one of the conveners of the situation room. Nwankwo is also the Executive Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre.
Nwankwo said that following the postponement of the elections, the Situation Room requested and held a meeting with Jega at the INEC Headquarters on Sunday.

He said that at the meeting, Jega explained why it was necessary to postpone the election.
He quoted Jega as saying that in the first place, the vendor with the material for North-central, South-south and South-east was supposed to have delivered materials to Abuja on Friday 1 April 2011 but kept postponing the delivery time and finally delivered the materials in Lagos at 9.00a.m of April 2,2011, which had already compromised the exercise given that they then had to be moved to Abuja before being dispersed to the various states.

He said: “In the second place, there were problems with the accreditors in the field, all of whom had been trained but some of whom never turned up. Again, at some polling stations there were more people than anticipated, over 1,000 in some cases. Finally, and most importantly of all, was the widespread absence of results’ sheets, which rendered the whole exercise redundant.”
Nwankwo said Jega then explained that his initial thought was that the postponed National Assembly elections should have held on Monday, 4 April in order not to leave too much time between the initial exercise and the re-scheduled one given that sensitive materials were already in the field but this turned out to be impossible.

According to him, political parties, security agencies and election observers all objected to the new timetable, with the result that it was imperative for him to postpone the parliamentary elections to April 9, the presidential election to April 16 and the gubernatorial, state houses of assembly elections to April 26th (April 23 being Easter).
“Regarding the sensitive material already used, Professor Jega assured that because of the in-built security features there was no possibility of unscrupulous people being able to make use of them to carry out their nefarious activities,” he declared.
On the issue of inaccurate or missing party logos, Nwankwo said Jega explained that part of the problem was caused by the incessant changes of candidates following court judgments but that some of the problems were caused by INEC not supervising the process sufficiently.

“On the issue of RECs carrying on with the election after the announcement of the postponement, Jega explained that, although they were informed about the postponement a full hour before it was made public, they were pressured by the electorate to continue with the exercise and in most cases had little choice in the matter,” he stated.
On the issue of possible sabotage within INEC, Nwankwo said Jega needed hard evidence before he could act and that he also cautioned that such allegations were just that – allegations – and might in some cases be levelled to cause distraction.
Concerning NYSC members, Jega explained that INEC had decided to give authority to the zonal commanders in order to instil discipline following the lapses that occurred during the registration exercise.

Regarding the people themselves monitoring the exercise by staying back at the voting centres and taking photos Jega said that INEC was clear about this and had encouraged people to do so.
Jega commended the role of the security agencies, in particular the Army and Navy, both of which branches of the Armed Forces had been extremely useful. However, he promised to look into the report that soldiers had allegedly beaten up observers in Nasarawa State.

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