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.
Realizing
they could not engineer an outright win, PDP agents set about doctoring the
tally at collation centers 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 center 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”.
Source:Reuters
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