INEC Chairman: I Was Never Privy to Security Report on Postponement of Edo Election...Read It All On Tafia World

Bolaji Adebiyi, Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja and Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City

Obviously due to the backlash the postponement, last Saturday, of the Edo State governorship election has generated, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday stepped up its denial of any complicity in the security report that led to the abrupt shift in the date of the poll to September 28, 2016.

The INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, and the National Commissioner for Voter Education and Publicity, Prince Solomon Soyebi, said emphatically that the security agencies never took the commission into confidence about the security report.

While Yakubu spoke exclusively to THISDAY through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi, Soyebi spoke to Channels TV on its breakfast talk show, Sunrise Daily. 

THISDAY had, however, gathered at the weekend that contrary to the election ma

nagement body’s claim, its chairman might have had fore knowledge of the security report but failed to disclose it to his colleagues on the board of the commission.

Citing security concerns, the Department of State Services (DSS) and the police had, after a closed-door meeting between...read it here... the Inspector General of Police (IG), Mr. Ibrahim Idris, and the DSS Director-General, Mr. Lawal Daura, in Abuja, had last Wednesday advised INEC to consider shifting the election to a future date.

“Credible intelligence availed the agencies indicate plans by insurgent/extremist elements to attack vulnerable communities and soft targets with high population during the forthcoming Sallah celebrations between 12th and 13th September, 2016,” the security agencies said in a statement by the Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), DCP Don Awunah, and Mr. Garba Abdullahi of the DSS.

But INEC promptly denied knowledge of any such security report and insisted, in a statement by Soyebi on Thursday afternoon, that the election would proceed. The electoral body, however, recanted around 8pm and postponed the election to September 28, 2016, citing communication from the security agencies that stated they would be unable to guarantee security for the election.
Information available to THISDAY, however, suggests that Yakubu might have been aware of the security report but failed to disclose it to his colleagues.

According to the information, as a member of the election security strategy committee, consisting of the IG; DG, DSS; Director-General, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and Chairman, INEC, which plans security and logistics of every election, Yakubu must have been aware that there were concerns about the capacity of the security agencies to police the election.

The committee, which meeting he had been attending three weeks before the scheduled election, had mooted the idea of shifting the poll date once the federal government decided to declare September 11 and 12, 2016 as public holidays for the celebration of Eid-el-Kabir.

This was because the security agencies knew that public holidays of this nature were periods that terrorists and militants attack soft targets. They, therefore, would need the full complements of their officers and men at their duty post to secure their commands.

The security agencies reasoned that it would be difficult to perform this duty if it moved the 25,000 policemen required to secure the election out of their commands, explaining that the logistics for pulling them out of Edo State after the election on September 9/10 was beyond their capacity. Hence the request for the shift in date to a more auspicious day.

Since the Electoral Act 2010 as amended allowed INEC to countermand an election, Yakubu was persuaded to consider the suggestion for a change of date.

He agreed, but requested to be allowed to get the buy-in of his colleagues on the commission since he could not make the decision alone. This was a week to the election.

He, however, did not feed the committee back until last Tuesday when he expressed his inability to broach the proposal among his colleagues, suggesting that if the IG and DG, DSS could issue an advisory, it would make his task easier.

This explained the joint press conference by the DSS and the police on Wednesday.
The committee, THISDAY gathered further, was dumbfounded by the turn of events after the advisory as the INEC lashed out at the security agencies, setting them up for public umbrage.

Agitated at the impending stalemate, particularly with the insistence of the DG, NYSC that he would not deploy his corps members, except their security was guaranteed, the committee decided to communicate its request for the postponement of the election to the electoral body officially, which compelled the commission to act and eventually shifted the poll date.

Confronted with this information monday, Yakubu pointedly denied any personal knowledge of the security report before the official communication to his commission.

Speaking to THISDAY on telephone through his CPS, Oyekanmi, the INEC chairman said the security agencies only got through to him only after they had addressed a press conference in Abuja on the matter.

He described the insinuation that Yakubu was aware of the request by the police and the DSS for the postponement of the election as “bare-faced lie” which does not hold water.

“You know, there are some things that cannot be said in public that took place in terms of efforts that the chairman made on that day in order to save the situation. It is just not fair for some people who don’t know what really happened to now start saying that the chairman of the INEC was privy to that decision to shift the election and is just feigning ignorance, that is a lie and very mischievous,” he said.

Oyekanmi explained that INEC was quite ready to go ahead with the election but it realised that it could not conduct the election without security guarantee.

He said that with the level of efforts and commitment that the INEC chairman had put in for the Edo election, there was no way anyone could accuse him of any connivance.

He said: “We were very ready for the election but when all those who are responsible for security told us that they cannot guarantee security then we were forced to listen to them.

“My brother, I don’t know why some politicians like to manufacture lies. Somebody who has been working as if nothing is bad. I was involved and at least I joined INEC in May, this year and I could see the level of preparations that have taken place before I joined and what they were doing after. There is no way someone can prepare like that and then connive.

“Why will he do a thing like that and if you have observed this man for some time, he is very transparent in what he has been doing because I have been involved and I know how much efforts have gone into the preparations for the election.

“What is the point for somebody who is saddled with the responsibility of organising election and he has put all the necessary things in place, of course governorship election is at the state level and organised by INEC commissioners in charge of that state, not the headquarters’ affair. It is only during the presidential election that the INEC headquarters are directly involved.

On the role of INEC’s inter agency committee on election security with regards to the recommendation for a shift in the date of the poll, the INEC chairman’s aide said that it is on record that the committee had given a clean bill of health for the election to proceed before the request from higher security authorities.

According to him, “My dear, on that Wednesday when that issue came up, the DIG in-charge of Operations from Police Headquarters in Abuja, Joshak Habila, was there in Benin city at the meeting and he gave a speech assuring us of adequate security and that the police was going to deploy 25,000 men and he was even warning politicians and any troublemakers that they should not try going to the polling booths to forment trouble.

“It was on that note that we concluded that meeting and we were all happy. In fact it was shortly after that meeting that the chairman of INEC started hearing the rumour that the police and DSS held a press conference in Abuja asking us to postpone the election in Edo State.

“What informed our initial position that we were not going to postpone it was that we didn’t receive any official notification as should have been done from the security agencies.

“It was only after 6 pm when the Inspector General of Police and the Director General of the DSS sent two separate letters to us conveying that position that was the time we now reversed our decision and agreed that we are going to postpone the election. So it is a bare-faced lie for anyone to say that the INEC chairman was aware of the security report and all the INEC commissioners were there with him on that day.”

Earlier yesterday, Soyebi had also told Channels TV that the commission was not briefed until the official communication. He said: “We heard it just like every other person. It came in as text messages. The second day, we did not have any official communication as at 12 noon. So we told the whole world that we were going ahead with the election.”

APGA Candidate Demands another Shift in Date

Meanwhile, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) governorship candidate in the poll, Mr. Osaro Onaiwu, has asked for a further shift of the election date to around October 1.
He hinged his argument for calling for the shift on the fact that Edo State students would be writing the General Certificate of Education (GCE) examination, and would write Physics on September 28, the new date of the election.

Onaiwu, who further reasoned that the shift he was advocating would enable the students take part in the election after their exam, added that education was number one pillar in APGA manifesto, even as he revealed that some of the students had threatened to sue INEC if they were prevented from voting in the election.