Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, has blamed ‘reckless politicians’ for the failure of the Result Viewing Portal (IReV) and the Bimodal Voter Registration Systems (BVAS) during the 2023 general elections.
Jega, the former Vice-Chancellor of Bayero University, Kano, accused desperate politicians of infiltrating the two technological systems introduced by INEC for the accreditation and electronic transmission of votes in the last general elections.
Speaking on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande on Channels Television on Friday, Jega said though INEC meant well, some politicians circumvented the whole IReV and BVAS systems.
“In 2023, INEC did its best under very difficult circumstances and a lot of these difficult circumstances were caused by the mindset of our selfish politicians who wanted to win by hook or by crook,” Jega expressed.
“INEC has overtime introduced technology to make the process of election results very transparent with integrity but from my own experience when I was in INEC from 2011 to 2015, and I suspect that a lot of that has continued to be so up to 2023, our reckless politicians try to be a step ahead of INEC; if you introduce something today and you try it, they try to be a step ahead of you and beat it by the next election. And of course, they can also use ways and means to not only truncate but to also bypass something that has actually been put legitimately in order to add to the integrity of the process,” he added.
Jega further called on INEC to give a detailed explanation of what went wrong with the whole story
“If you ask my opinion, I feel very strongly that INEC needs to tell us more about what happened with the IReV. In fact, at one point, I was even calling for a thorough public inquiry about what happened with regards to IReV. I feel that something has happened, that in spite of the confidence and the very articulate manner the INEC chairman (Mahmood Yakubu) had spoken about the IReV and it then failed. I believe that some of our reckless politicians may have infiltrated it and truncated it but INEC will take the blame for that,” Jega emphasized.
According to him, once the court cases are resolved, we need to go back to the bottom of what happened with the IReV.
In addition to addressing the failure of INEC systems during the 2023 elections, former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, emphasized the necessity of elite consensus to achieve substantial development in Nigeria.
Jega highlighted concerns about the structure of the Federation, stating, “The structure of the Federation leaves much to be desired and it needs to be improved upon. If you compare Nigeria as a Federation with other Federations in the world, you can see remarkable differences which, if not addressed, will continue to push us in the direction of identity politics, increased mutual suspicions, and undermine governance.”
Furthermore, he stressed the importance of consensus in addressing economic issues, such as poverty reduction and economic growth. Jega expressed regret over Nigeria’s apparent reliance on external guidance since 1999, stating, “Regrettably, maybe since 1999, we seem to lack the independence to develop economic growth without the guidance of the IMF and the World.
“You can listen to IMF, World Bank, but at the end of it all, it must be what you think is right for the development of the country, rather than just yielding to the pressure and arm-twisting that the World Bank and the IMF are known to do.”
According to Jega, establishing elite consensus requires dialogue, and institutions should be mobilized to champion consensus on crucial issues facing the nation.