2015: Jonathan Probes April Elections

President Goodluck Jonathan has set up a five-man committee to investigate the just concluded general elections in order to improve on the 2015 polls.
According to a presidency source, Jonathan has resolved to work with the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, in his bid to improve on the just concluded election by setting up a five-man panel to investigate the last polls in order to identify all malpractices that discredited them before the outside world.

The panel, according to our source, is under the chairmanship of a former principal officer of the National Assembly and a political scientist, Senator Jonathan Silas Zwingina, with a directive to submit its report within three weeks of its inauguration. The panel is expected to submit its report before the Sunday inauguration.

“President Jonathan has made up his mind to address all the identified malpractices that were noticed in the last general elections beginning from the registration of voters, the conduct of the election, the collation, the role of the security agencies and other factors that constitute the whole process.

Although most of the election observers rated the general election high, some critics believed they were deceived by the relative peace that characterised the whole process. A lot of manipulations took place at the collation centres, they alleged.

A member of the panel who sought anonymity told our correspondent that “the committee has been meeting 24-7 with a view to beating the deadline given by President Jonathan. We agreed with him that despite all the accolades being received from the international community over the election, the president believed we can still improve upon it come 2015. This is the essence of our committee and we have done enough in that regard.”

Jega has disclosed that his administration is working hard on some amendments to the Electoral Act with a view to giving the best election to the country come 2015.
Efforts to get Mr. Zwingina’s comments last night proved abortive as he neither picked his calls nor responded to the text message sent to him.