By Danlami Nmodu
Chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission,,INEC ,Professor Attahiru Jega has given some insight into how he has cleaned up the negative image of commission caused by “a few bad eggs “.Jega said upon his arrival as Chairman , all Commissioners made a commitment not to break the law.They also vowed not ask any staff to break the law .The staff were subsequently warned not to break the law. “Whoever breaks the law or does something wrong will have himself or herself to blame” he told the staff in his early days at the commission. And that appears to have worked as the commission’s rating has soared ever since.
Jega made these points known during a recent interactive session with the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers, GOCOP in Abuja.The session was also attended by journalists from local and foreign media organisations.
Jega said “When we came in in 2011,INEC had a very negative image, a negative image acquired by a few bad eggs.People who did something wrong and because of what they did wrong, virtually everybody in INEC was blamed.And obviously we discovered that a substantial majority of INEC staff are honest decent people doing their best under very difficult circumstances. So the first thing we did was to say that if you can’t fit in, you better check out.That is for those bad eggs.
Continuing, he said, “And we did our best to ensure that we cleaned up the electoral Commission.We promised the staff that we will respect the law and we will make sure that we as commissioners do not break the law and that we will not ask anybody to break the law.Therefore whoever breaks the law or does something wrong will have himself or herself to blame.We drew the line.we didn’t go back to start investigations ..we said we are drawing the line,henceforth, we move on and if we have evidence you have done something wrong you will leave.If you deserve prosecution ,you will be prosecuted. And we have lived up to that commitment which we made when we came.
He disclosed that INEC “is now poised to deliver free, fair and credible elections come February 2015.”He made this pledge during a recent interaction with the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers GOCOP and some other journalists in Abuja.
“ I want to say that we feel very confident that we are adequately prepared to do much, much better than we have done in 2011.And the reason why I feel this confident and many of us in the commission feel this confident is because we know that since 2011, we have done quite a lot to reform, to restructure and to improve INEC as an election management body that can do its job efficiently and effectively “,Jega said .
Speaking on his experience so far,Jega said “Many of you would recall that the commission that Iam privileged to chair was inaugurated in June 2010 and we conducted elections in April 2011.In terms of preparation, we had barely eight good months to prepare for those elections.Within those 8 months we did our best,Nigerians supported us,many development partners supported us.And at the end of it all, the 2011 general elections were widely acclaimed as one of the best ever conducted in this country.In fact many said it was the best ever conducted in this country.That was within 8 months.”
The INEC chair said further, “We have now had four years to prepare for the 2015 February elections.And whatever we did that made the2011 elections good we were able to look at it more carefully to refine it so that we can repeat it quite better.But over and above that we also have done quite additional work ..
He disclosed that no less than four million multiple registrations have been detected and subsequently deleted from the voters’ register. “We have cleaned up the register”, he said.
Jega reassured Nigerians that the Commission was preparing for elections in every part of the country including embattled Adamawa,Borno and Yobe states.He expressed the hope that there would be an improvement in the security situation before the elections.
