Despite conceding the 2015 presidential election, former president Goodluck Jonathan was not comfortable with how it was handled by Attahiru Jega, former chairman of INEC.
In an advance copy of ‘Against the Run of Play’, a book written by bestselling author Segun Adeniyi, Jonathan said Jega disappointed him. .
“I was disappointed by Jega because I still cannot understand what was propelling him to act the way he did in the weeks preceding the election,” he said. .
“As at the first week in February 2015 when about 40% of Nigerians had not collected their PVCs, Jega said INEC was ready to conduct an election in which millions of people would be disenfranchised.” .
Jonathan also said he had a meeting with Jega to express his reservations about the preparedness of INEC for the exercise, but he insisted that the election would go ahead. .
“Of course, the Americans were encouraging him to go ahead yet they would never do such a thing in their own country. How could we have cynically disenfranchised about a third of our registered voters for no fault of theirs and still call that a credible election? .
The interesting thing was that the opposition also supported the idea of going on with the election that was bound to end in confusion,” he added.
The election was scheduled for February 14, 2015, but the Jonathan government shifted it by six weeks. The action was greeted by strong criticism from Nigerians. In the book, Jonathan also defended his decision to postpone the election, saying it was for security reasons. Crdt: TheCable
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