A report by the
Reuters news agency
has unravelled an alleged plot by some persons close to President
Goodluck Jonathan to abduct the Chairman of the Independent National
Electoral commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Tuesday, March 31,
to stop him from announcing the results of the presidential election
and declaring Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) as the winner of the
poll.
According to Reuters, central to the plan were Jega's security detail
and Godsday Orubebe, a former Minister of the Niger Delta Ministry.
Orubebe's role was to cause a disturbance at the collation centre as
cover for the abduction of Jega.
Quoting pro-democracy advocates and an Abuja-based diplomat, the report said:
As Muhammadu Buhari closed in on Nigeria's presidency, an aide to
election commission chairman Attahiru Jega sent a text message to an
independent voting monitor, warning of an imminent threat to the
electoral process.
The aide had unearthed a plot by supporters of President Goodluck
Jonathan to disrupt the public announcement of the national election
results and kidnap Jega in a bid to wreck the count, according to pro-democracy advocates and a Nigeria-based diplomat.
Central to the plan, they said, were Jega's security detail and Godsday
Orubebe, a former cabinet minister from Jonathan's Niger Delta, an area
whose leaders feared a change of power would mean an end to the perks it
enjoyed under Jonathan's presidency.
Orubebe's role was to cause a disturbance at the headquarters of the
commission as cover for the abduction of Jega. Orubebe did not respond
to requests for comment on the details of the plot.
The commission, called INEC, also declined to comment and turned down
requests for an interview with Jega, whom Reuters was unable to reach
independently. Reuters found no evidence to suggest that Jonathan, who
conceded defeat in the election, was involved. His spokesman and his
party, the PDP, did not respond to requests for comment.
While the plot would likely not have changed the result, it could have
unleashed fury among Buhari supporters in the north, where 800 people
were killed in rioting after his last election defeat in 2011.
But the plot's failure enabled Africa's most populous country to complete its first credible vote since independence in 1960.
"NIGERIA ON TRIAL"
The plot to derail the election in its closing moments was pieced
together by Reuters from the text message, events on the ground and
interviews with democracy advocates and diplomats in the capital, Abuja.
When he sent the SMS, the election official, whom the sources declined
to name for his own protection, hoped the outside world would hear of
the plot, the text of the message made clear.
"Fellow countrymen, Nigeria on Trial," read the SMS sent on the morning
of March 31 to Clement Nwankwo, head of the Situation Room, an
Abuja-based coalition of human rights groups and democracy advocates
monitoring the polls. Reuters later saw the SMS.
"Plans are on storm [sic] the podium at the ICC Collation Centre and
disrupt the process," it continued, the official dropping words and
letters in his haste.
"Nobody is sue [sic] what will happen. Please share this as widely as possible."
At that moment, INEC chairman Jega was about to preside over the announcement of results.
TALLY COUNT
Since the end of army rule in 1999, all four previous votes had been marred by violence and ballot-rigging.
The 2015 poll was different in two crucial aspects.
It was a genuine race, pitting Jonathan, saddled with an ailing economy
and an Islamist insurgency, against a former general promising to get
tough on corruption and the Boko Haram insurgents.
Voters had also been given biometric ID cards linked to their
photographs and fingerprints, making it hard to inflate voter numbers
significantly.
As tallies from around the country showed Buhari on course for a win,
unidentified PDP hard-liners started to panic, seeking ways of
manipulating the count, Nwankwo and the diplomat said, citing political
contacts in the Delta and Abuja.
Realising they could not engineer an outright win, PDP agents set about
doctoring the tally at collation centres in pro-Jonathan areas to ensure
Buhari failed to meet a requirement for 25 percent support in two
thirds of states, Nwankwo said, citing reports from election monitors on
the ground.
A Reuters reporter witnessed and photographed one tally list in Port
Harcourt with suspiciously similar totals for registered voters at
polling stations: 500, 500, 500, 500, 500, 500, 500, 500, 450. In
another tally centre in the city, 17,594 valid votes were recorded out
of a registered voter population of 11,757, the Reuters reporter said.
Foreign election observers also noted the peculiarities - and contacted
diplomats in Abuja who called in international intervention.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his British counterpart Philip
Hammond - in Switzerland for talks on Iran - issued a tough statement
saying vote counting "may be subject to deliberate political
interference".
"CREATE A FRACAS"
But as Buhari's lead grew, some PDP supporters from the Delta, including
Orubebe, decided on a final gamble: to create a disturbance in the main
INEC hall and have thugs snatch Jega from the stage, according to
Nwankwo and the Abuja-based diplomat.
What the group planned to do after the abduction is unclear, the
diplomat and Nwankwo said, but the confusion could have triggered
nationwide violence.
"It was a desperate thing, mostly by a group of people from the Niger
Delta who were in the room," Nwankwo said, describing events that
unfolded publicly in the minutes after he received the SMS.
When Jega opened proceedings on the morning of March 31, Orubebe, the
former Niger Delta minister, grabbed a microphone and launched into an
11-minute tirade accusing Jega of bias.
"Mr. Chairman, we have lost confidence in you," he shouted, pushing away
officials trying to make him surrender the microphone. "You are being
very, very selective. You are partial," he continued, surrounded by
three or four supporters. "You are tribalistic. We cannot take it."
Nigerians watched, aghast, on live television.
Meanwhile, Jega's security detail was approached by unidentified
individuals telling them to stand down, according to Nwankwo and the
diplomat.
But the bodyguards refused.
"Some of the guards who had been guarding Jega for years demanded a written order," Nwankwo said. "But it didn't exist."
Jega then rebuked Orubebe: "Let us not disrupt a process that has ended peacefully," he said as Orubebe slumped in his chair.
"Mr. Orubebe, you are a former minister of the Federal Republic. You are
a statesman in your own right. You should be careful about what you say
or about what allegations you make," he said.
Later, Orubebe congratulated Buhari on Twitter, expressing his "apologies to fellow Nigerians".
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