Jega disappointed me in 2015 election - Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan

Jega disappointed me in 2015 election - Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan

Even though he conceded in Nigeria's 2015 presidential election, ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, has disclosed how the then Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC )Chairman, Attahiru Jega disappointed him. 

This revelation was contained in a book titled, ‘Against the Run of Play' ,written by the Chairman of THISDAY editorial board, Segun Adeniyi.

“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. .
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“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 said.

Cableng also reported that 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.

Ex-President Goodluck also disclosed why the election which was scheduled for February 14, 2015, was by six weeks. Recall that this action was greeted by strong criticism from Nigerians.

Here's what he said;

“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 to the level in which they posed the threat to the election,” he said.