2015 Election was free and fair, the truth behind Kano's result - Jega replies Jonathan

Pro Attahiru Jega

Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega has reacted to the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s statement that the 2015 general election was not free and fair enough. 

Jonathan said this in a book titled; "Against the Run of Play", written by Olusegun Adeniyi, the ThisDay Editorial Board Chairman.

Jonathan had declared his disappointed in the then INEC chairman, Professor Jega for the manner and process of the election.

The former president said the difference between the votes for presidential election and National Assembly in Kano State indicated everything was wrong with the election.

The special assistance to Jega responded on his behalf to rebuff the claim by saying nothing was wrong with the election result from Kano State.

He said: “There is nothing particularly special about the Kano result; it is a general trend as many votes were more interested in the presidential election than in other elections. That was what happened across the country and you can go and do the tabulation.”

“With the card reader, it is no longer possible to return results that are higher than the accredited voters. If you analyse the results nationally, you will discover the same trend.”

Commenting on the result, a source close to the former INEC boss said Jonathan must have been wrongly advised to believe the former INEC chairman would betray him by doing what was wrong.

The former President Jonathan also maintained that his administration had right to postpone the election based on security reasons.

“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.”

Although the former president faulted the results of the 2015 presidential election, he said he conceded defeat to avoid bloodshed.

“Go and check the results from Kano. The Presidential election and that of National Assembly happened on the same day and same time. The National Assembly result reflected that about 800,000 people voted but that of the presidential reflected a vote of about 1.8 million. I had reports of what happened but I decided that for such to be accepted, it meant that those who called themselves my supporters must have colluded. I was betrayed by the very people I relied on to win the election.

“In 2011 when Buhari did not campaign anywhere and could not have won the election, there was a spontaneous violent reaction that led to the death of several innocent people, including Youth Corps members.”

“I asked myself: what would happen in a situation in which there was already internal and international conspiracy in his favour? I could not bear the thought of anybody dying, so I told myself I had only one option and that was to concede," said the former president.