Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Attahiru Jega Thursday said that allegations that the elections in Rivers state was manipulated and flawed has been exaggerated. He said the elections in the state was credible and the commission did the right by announcing the winner.“Rivers has become quite a big issue,and we did our best to be able to have enough evidence to make an informed decision before results were returned. ” We received reports of fake results sheets, use of photocopied result sheet, substitution of trend of INEC personnel and allegation of no election taking place in some polling units”. “It came before we announced the results, so we immediately constituted a three man team made up of national commissioners to go to Rivers state and investigate the allegations”.
” It was not true that elections did not take place in majority part of the state, infact the evidence was that in the overwhelming majority election took place in most areas”.
” It wasn’t true that there was fake result sheets, there was no photocopied results sheets, there was no substantive evidence to support the wild allegations.
“From our investigations we were satisfied that there was no substantive evidence to cancel the elections as agitated by some people, we also have people on ground and observers like TMG, and others who also gave us honest report about what happened”.
” I don’t think there was massive irregularities as reported in Rivers state, my advice is that they should go to the tribunal, if they have evidence, On our own part we have done our thorough investigation”.
“We have scanned 95 percent of the results sheets from all the polling units and we will put them on our site once we get to 100 percent”.
” I am not saying their is no irregularities, but not to the magnitude that has been reported”.
He said that the Orubebe incident was unfortunate and regrettable, he advised statesmen to be statesmen and urged Nigerians to move on and forget about the incident.
