President Goodluck Jonathan Wednesday said he has not told anybody that he would remove the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Attahiru Jega ahead of the rescheduled general elections.
Fielding questions from a team of journalists during the presidential media chat, he could however not say categorically that Jega will conduct the elections now holding on March 28 and April 11.
It is being rumoured that the Presidency would direct the INEC boss, Jega, to proceed on three months terminal leave from March since his tenure ends in June.
Asked to clear the air on this, Jonathan said, “I have not told anybody I am going to remove Jega, I have not said so.
“There is a lot of misinformation that goes to the public and that is one thing that makes me sad in this country.”
He however hastened to add that the constitution empowers the person who appoints to also remove.
On the postponement of the election, the President said he was not consulted before the announcement, saying “I don’t decide dates of elections”.
He recalled that in 2011, he was already in his community, Otuoke, Bayelsa State to vote when INEC boss announced the postponement of election by two weeks.
President Jonathan also posited that the advice offered by the Security Chiefs that the polls be shifted should not be an issue.
Speaking on the fate of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped over 10 months ago by the Boko Haram terrorists, the president said that “I belief the story of Chibok Girls will get better in the next few weeks, but don’t quote me. We are working with our neighbours, we will comb the whole of that place. We would recover them alive
“It’s unfortunate that people play politics with the issue of Chibok girls. It’s not like that elsewhere. In other countries, political boundaries collapse in the face of terror attacks, not so in Nigeria.
When asked if election would hold should the military fails to eliminate Boko Haram in six weeks, Presidents said the new dates are scrosanct and a new president would be sworn in by May 29, arguing that the goal is not to totally eliminate Boko Haram but to make adequate security arrangement for the election.
While speaking on the increasing rates of hate speeches and political violence by both opposition and ruling party members, the president explained that “some people” get carried away by the political play and exude these violence.
He blamed aides and associates of key political actors for the hate speeches and political violence, even as he did not categorically condemn the hate speeches or war threats or politically-motivated violence.
“We will make sure things are done so that nobody goes to war,” the president said when he was pressed for categorical stance on the war threats by ex-millitants should he lose the elections.
On his earlier stand that what we have in Nigeria is stealing and not corruption as widely held by many, the president said he made that statement quoting the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Dahiru Mustafa, who explained to him that his analysis of corruption cases in Nigeria showed that most of such cases were theft.
He argued that referring to stealing as corruption minimizes the crime. “Ole (thief in Yoruba) should be called Ole and given that treatment,” the president said, adding that “Let us communicated properly. The word corruption, we have abused it.
“It is not actually my quotation. I quoted the former Chief Justice,” as he continues to defend his previous comments on corruption and stealing.
“We have convicted more corrupt people than ever. It is just that Nigerians are confused on what the difference is between stealing and corruption,” Jonathan said.
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