Says Jonathan has restored voters power
Re-elected Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole has defended his criticism of Professor Attahiru Jega's Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) for the hiccups noticed during Saturday's election.
He however commended President Goodluck Jonathan for providing the political leadership necessary for the growth of democracy in the country, noting that one man one vote has restored power back to voters.
Speaking at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Monday, Oshiomhole said he wasn’t hasty in his remarks in condemning INEC in an election in which he eventually won and had had no regrets for his comments.
He explained that he had petitioned the electoral body two months back to draw Jega’s attention to plans by his opponent to use underhand tactics with the help of some INEC officials to try and disenfranchise some eligible voters.
"You see in my own part of the world the fact that you got home safely doesn't mean you should not investigate an accident scene. I mean, this is one election we had several meetings. I had informed the INEC in a petition about two months ago that my opponents in their strategic meeting sent out their men and they reported back that it will be impossible for them to win. But then their leader insisted they must win and that this is his last time.
“They then asked how they were going to do that, they then agreed on a number of issues. One of them was that my support base in Benin city is very strong and incidentally, Edo South accounts for 55 per cent of the total registered voters. And so they agreed that they are going to work with some people in the INEC on Election Day to delay supply of materials. And so when you supply materials late, two things will happen, the barrage of persons who have queued up since 8 o'clock remember after 8 there is restrictions of movement and so you should have gotten to your polling booth by 8. Then you wait for five hours if material don't come the average person will be like, well I have done my best if the material has not come I have to go home. Don't forget there are no eateries around the area and so people would have been compelled to fast so immediate prediction of that is that you will find so many people who will not able to vote.
"Number two, when you then push the elections into the dark hours in a country in which you are not sure of power supply, when it is dark it becomes easy for election manipulators to change numbers. So these I conveyed to Professor Jega and we raised in the various stakeholders meetings that we had with him. Secondly, I wrote to Prof. Jega and hinted on the fact that there were plans to mutilate the voter's register by creating confusion. People will go to where they voted in the last election and will not find their names. And in the confusion that will follow, they could be fighting that will then lead to cancellation and if that is your support base it means you would have lost a lot of your votes. Like I said these were issues I had conveyed to INEC about two months ago.
"Now on that Saturday, materials arrived faraway places like my village about two hours drive from Benin, materials arrived in Esan land about one and half or an hour 45 minutes drive from Benin, and yet Benin city where the materials are coming from two, three four hours after the commencement of accreditation at 8 o' clock, reports in many places show that materials had not arrive. Now, is up to you as media men whether when you see things like this happening you should keep quiet until after your death, then professor of anatomy will go and establish the possible causes of death. If you have been a victim of election rigging, you will know that it doesn't make absolutely sense to see people rigging you out and you keep quiet because you do not want to raise alarm. In every battle you take preemptive steps because it can make all the difference. Medicine after death doesn't make sense except to foolish people and I am not a foolish man".
Oshiomhole also queried the involvement of questionable characters in the conduct of election despite being indicted. He noted that INEC boss should bear the consequences if he chooses to ignore warnings reminding him of the role these persons played in the past
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