London – The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will co-operate with litigants on forensic examination of electoral materials, its Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, said.
Jega made the pledge on Wednesday when he was hosted to an event tagged; “An Evening with Prof Jega and the Nigerian Community’’, organised by the Nigerian High Commission in the UK at the Nigerian House in London.
“We welcome the forensic examination of the materials used at the just concluded elections. We will be interested to know how the alleged riggings happened.
“INEC will co-operate with the litigants to provide the materials needed but the examination will have to be carried out in our offices,’’ Jega said, but added: “we will not spend any money on it because we do not have.”
He explained that with the re-modified ballot system used for the just concluded elections, it was impossible for rigging to take place.
Jega said although it had been alleged that rigging took place at the point of transporting of the ballot boxes to the collation centres, the same results in the ballot boxes were counted and displayed at the polling unit before transportation for collation.
He said 870,000 people committed electoral offences during the voter registration and called for the establishment of separate tribunals to look into such cases.
“We are thinking of the establishment of separate election offences tribunal because the normal court is so busy with civil cases that it will take a longer time to dispose of these of cases,’’ he said.
Amb. Ayo Oke, the Head of African Section in the Commonwealth Secretariat, in an overview of the elections, said the success of the polls marked the beginning of a genuine democratic process in Nigeria.
Oke attributed the success of the elections to the respect and confidence the Nigerian people had in Jega.
He commended Jega for his willingness to accept full responsibility of the postponement of the elections, saying that “it was a remarkable departure from the norm.’’
Earlier, Amb. Dozie Nwanna, on behalf of Nigerians in the UK, commended Jega for `re-branding Nigeria positively’.
Jega, who was accompanied by his wife, had earlier been hosted by Mr Henry Bellingham, the UK Minister for Africa in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
He will also be hosted on Thursday by the Commonwealth Secretariat and be presented with the secretariat’s final report of the 2011 elections in Nigeria. (NAN)
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INEC to cooperate on forensic examination of materials – Jega