•Divides commission along regional lines
•INEC working with PDP to rig election —Tinubu

A strong cabal within the hierarchy of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reportedly hijacked the commission, surreptitiously pushing its chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, in a direction that could mar the 2015 elections.


A credible source close to the electoral umpire told Sunday Tribune in confidence on Saturday that members of the cabal are from the North, adding that the development had divided national commissioners sharply along regional lines.

He added that consequent upon pressures from the Senate and the judiciary, the embattled chairman of the commission, Jega, had begun considering dropping the contentious idea of creating new polling units, but the cabal is the one bent on pushing forward with it.

“While INEC is struggling to meet deadlines set for delivering the important Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) required by voters to participate in the next general election, its principal officers are busy trying to implement lopsided ghost polling units created by a top member in its Operations Committee, the very architect of this polling units who curiously has cleverly avoided speaking on this matter, and some other principal officers who want to give Northern constituencies electoral advantages.

“The commission’s chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, has become reluctant to pursue the new polling units because of the pressures brought upon the process by a subsisting legal challenge by the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), a letter from the Senate Committee on INEC to put the matter in abeyance for wider consultations and security reports advising the commission to tread carefully on the matter, as well as numerous stakeholders advising against it for now.

“Professor Jega expressed his reluctance to pursue the matter further, given the divisive effect it has on the commission and other stakeholders who are critical to trust-building, prior to a general election. He made his feeling known to fellow national commissioners in a recent meeting held at the commission’s headquarters.

“But while he was about to press on with a better way forward, he was cornered by the cabal who forcefully insisted that INEC ought to go ahead with the new lopsided polling units,” the source stated, adding that the cabal was unabashed about representing their regional political interests, arguing forcefully that the states had almost implemented the contentious PUs, even when there was no evidence of that at the said meeting to push the matter before the state offices.

The development, accordingly, had created a serious division among its top officials from the South, who are now suspicious of their colleagues from the North. Some of the officials in states, it was said, were being subtly coerced to go ahead with the implementation of the polling unit creation.

National commissioners from the South, stated the source, were reluctant to push regional agenda that would be seen as representing their zones, but their Northern counterparts, led by three national commissioners, as usual, presented their sectional interests unabashedly and, again, had their way.

A situation which made the meeting to end without a definitive way forward on whether or not to implement the new polling units.

The Northern cabal, not deterred, was reported to have met to devise ways of pressing ahead with the implementation of the new polling units, despite the lack of any clear directive to do so.

Accordingly, they were said to have employed blackmail, deliberate misinformation, all through the week, and even made phone calls to resident commissioners, including in Southern states that are not under their supervision.

“In a divide and rule approach, they lied to the commissioners that other states had sent in their reports indicating how they had implemented the directive to create the new polling units. They said it must be launched on Tuesday, the very day the Federal High Court would be sitting on this matter,” the source stated.

The development, it was revealed, had created confusion in states INEC offices, especially over the implementation of the new PUs.

The source observed that the cabal resorted to the phone call tactic, perhaps, afraid that any memo raised on the issue could be leaked to the press,as had been done in the past.

The cabal was also said to be piling pressures on INEC heads of operations in all the states of the federation, who were invited to an ongoing workshop in Abuja.

One after the other, they were summoned and compelled to submit the implementation report from their states. Some were said to have submitted e-copy, which is not in the usual standard format for such an important report that ought to be signed by the RECs. Plans are also underway to carry out new posting of RECs in which case Northern RECs would be posted to the South to come and implement these polling units that must be created, given that officials from the South, the would-be victim, are unwilling to allow the exercise.

Meanwhile, national leader of the APC, Senator Bola Tinubu, accused the INEC of conniving with the PDP to rig 2015 election.

The APC leader urged the INEC to display the 2011 voters’ register in Lagos for verification by the party and registered voters in the state.

He made the call while addressing journalists at the party’s secretariat at ACME Road, Ikeja, on Saturday, saying that the INEC had explanation to make concerning its earlier pronouncement that 6.2 million voters registered in the state in 2011 and its counter-claim that the state had just 4.8 million permanent voters cards.


http://www.tribune.com.ng/news/top-stories/item/21042-northern-cabal-hijacks-inec

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