The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof, Attahiru Jega, on Monday said there was no evidence before the commission as it relates to election irregularities in Rivers State.
Jega, who spoke at the Civil Rights Situation Room held in Abuja, stated that the Commission on getting the petition of irregularities in Rivers State sent three National Commissioners to investigate it.
He added that the reports submitted by the team did show irregularities in the election.
He said: “We have no power to cancel elections results once returns have been made.
“On the petition against election irregularities in Rivers State, the commission sent three National Commissioners to the state to investigate it.
“Some people don’t want elections to hold.
“They are the ones calling for cancellation.
“We investigated the allegation of fake result sheets in Rivers.
“Our reports showed that there was nothing like that.”
On whether he will accept the offer if he is re-appointed as INEC boss, Jega said he would not as he wanted to do something else with his life.
The INEC boss further stated that the commission was already in partnership with the Police and the Nigerian Bar Association to prosecute electoral offenders.
He noted that one offender had already been prosecuted in Adamawa State.
The offender was sentenced to six months imprisonment for illegal possession of Permanent Voter Card.
Jega called on whoever has evidence as it relates to electoral offences to bring such to the commission, with a promise that it will be investigated and consequently tried in court.
On the planned supplementary elections in Abia State, Jega said the elections will hold only in the wards where election was cancelled and not in the entire three local government areas.
Jega further revealed about 20,000 PVCs were not produced before the election was conducted because the producer was arrested by the police over allegation that he gave the password to a political party.
The INEC boss attributed the success achieved in the elections to the use of technology, adding that subsequent elections can be better if the present success is sustained.
He said: “Evidently, some people did not want us to use the card reader machine.
“That was why we allowed manual election in some few places where the card reader did not function well during the presidential election.
“Some people were already saying that we deliberately deployed card reader machine that will not work in some zones and to prove them wrong, we instructed that manual voting should take place in such places.
“But some people wanted to take the advantage of that.
“But during governorship election, we ensured that all the card reader machines worked.
“We had earlier sent warning to all the RECs that they will be held responsible for any card reader that did not work properly.”
Earlier, the convener of the Situation Room and Executive Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, Clement Nwankwo, had on behalf of the Civil Societies congratulated Jega and INEC over the success of the elections.
Nwankwo however noted that the Situation Room had raised concern over Rivers, Abia and Akwa Ibom States elections.
He also noted that there were complaints about some of the Resident Electoral Commissioners as it related to their relationship with politicians in their various states.
Also speaking, the Country Representative of DFID in Nigeria, Catherine Weiss, commended the INEC for a job well done in the just concluded elections.