The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Tuesday said his agency was helpless in the face of calls for the cancellation of some election results.
Foreign and local election observers, including civil society organisations (CSOs) have queried the credibility of results of last governorship and House of Assembly elections in Abia, Akwa-Ibom and Rivers States.
Specifically, a coalition of CSOs – the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room – in its post-election analysis on April 13, said reports submitted by its members, who monitored elections in the three states, revealed that the elections were “lacking in credibility and fraught with irregularities.
It expressed concern “about the overall conduct of the elections in the three states because there are grounds to question the credibility of the elections results.”
The Situation Room urged INEC to urgently take steps to authenticate the final collated results from the three states against the polling unit results and make a reasoned judgment about them.
But Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja at a dialogue session put together by the Situation Room, Jega justified why his commission could not cancel election results from the states as being requested by many.
He blamed this on some inadequacies in the Electoral Act.
Jega decried the fact that the national office of INEC in Abuja has weak control over the state offices, noting that Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs), currently wield enormous powers owing to the inherent lacunas in the Electoral Act.
He noted that once a Returning Officer declares any election result, “whether the result is false or doctored, there is nothing else we can do about it than to ask the candidates to go the tribunal to challenge such result.
“There is nothing in the legal framework that gives the INEC Chairman the power to cancel results from anywhere over alleged irregularities. We have no power to cancel elections results once returns have been made.”
He said his commission also lacked sufficient evidence to support claims about irregularities in the Rivers’ election.
“On the petition against election irregularities in Rivers State, the commission sent three national commissioners to the state to investigate it. Some people don’t want elections to hold, they are the ones calling for cancellation. We investigate the allegation of fake result sheets in Rivers, our reports showed that there was nothing like that,” Jega said.
He said there was no way INEC could have successfully conducted the run-off election within seven days as provided for in both the Constitution and the Electoral Act.