esantex:
Jonathan Personally Called INEC Returning Officers to Rig and Increase His Votes To Win
According to their
findings, President Goodluck Jonathan played a direct role
in efforts to rig Nigeria’s presidential election that took
place on March 28, 2015, including placing telephone calls
to pressure returning officers to alter vote tallies.
The extent of effort to rig the polls for Jonathan and the
outgoing president’s direct role in the scheme, emerged
from interviews and tips offered by electoral officials,
security agents, foreign and Nigerian election monitors, and
members of the president’s own party - the PDP.
Weeks before the election, as Jonathan’s internal pollsters
warned that his reelection prospects looked dire, the
president and his inner circle of associates approved
several measures to rig the elections...
Investigation by Sahara Reporters revealed that these
included massive deployment of soldiers to several states
in Nigeria’s southwest to help intimidate voters
sympathetic to the APC, the redeployment of police and
other security officials to ensure that those who favored the
incumbent president were assigned to “politically tough”
states, and the movement of massive amounts of cash to
designated states to entice both voters and opposition party
agents to swing their support to Jonathan.
When all the steps failed to deliver enough votes to the
president, Jonathan and his inner circle went into panic
mode once collation of results began. At the end of the first
day of election collation by INEC, as it dawned on the
president’s team that he was headed for defeat, Jonathan
sent retired Colonel Bello Fadile to shop around for any
judge who would give an order to stop the collation.
A judge told Sahara Reporters that this effort largely failed
because the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court had
warned other judges to refrain from entertaining such
controversial and potentially incendiary election-related
cases . The one judge Mr. Fadile thought he could count on
pleaded that he had left Abuja for his hometown for Easter
holidays.
Once the plan to use judiciary to scuttle the collation
collapsed, Mr. Fadile recruited ex-Minister of Niger Delta
Affairs, Godsday Orubebe, to lead the role in a plan to
physically disrupt collation of results.
Mr. Orubebe drove into the collation center with two heavily
armed men believed to be Niger Delta militants. Once Mr.
Orubebe arrived at the International Civil Center (ICC), of
the collation venue, the Department of Security Services
(DSS) withdrew its security detail clearing the way for Mr.
Orubebe’s thugs to foment mayhem. The agency also
jammed the Internet service at the center, making it near
impossible for reporters at the venue to access the Internet.
Our investigation revealed that what saved the day was the
refusal of the Nigerian police at the venue to accept the
order to withdraw from the venue. The police commanders
at the collation center demanded an official letter from their
Inspector General if they were to leave, arguing that their
posting to the venue had been done via an official letter.
“ We said it would be unwise to leave [the collation center]
without a counter letter or signal from our headquarters,”
one of the police officers told our correspondent.
As Mr. Orubebe began his disruptive action, Usman
Abdullahi, an aide to INEC chairman Attahiru Jega, sent
text messages to a few notable Nigerians as well as some
Western diplomats alerting them to the possibility that the
armed men who accompanied Mr. Orubebe would abduct
Mr. Jega. Sahara Reporters saw a copy of the text
message.
Mr. Jega’s calm response to Mr. Orubebe’s antics, as well
as the refusal of the Nigerian police personnel to quit the
ICC, foiled the plot to abduct the INEC chairman.
Mr. Jega remained on his seat for the better part of the
day, refusing to leave the table even as he declared short
breaks to await the arrival of election returning officers
from various states.
Sahara Reporters learned that several of the returning
officers were flown into Abuja on a presidential jet.
However, the jet made unusual “disappearances” and
curiously long delays in bringing in returning officers from
the South South and South Eastern states. One of the
Presidency sources said the president ordered a delay in
flying in the returning officer of Borno State by at least four
hours. The president figured that the poll results from the
state would widen Mr. Buhari’s lead, giving Nigerians and
the global community a clear picture of the APC
candidate’s decisive and irreversible domination of the
presidential polls.
While the returning officer from Borno State was
abandoned at the Air Force base in Maiduguri, the returning
officer from Delta State presented figures that temporarily
seemed to boost Mr. Jonathan’s electoral fortunes .
Several sources disclosed that these delays were part of
President Jonathan’s tactical game. President Jonathan
made frantic calls to several returning officers from the
South South and South East urging them to bump up his
final figures to enable him win by at least 500,000 votes
against his rival, Muhammadu Buhari. At the time of the
president’s calls to returning officers, Mr. Buhari was
already leading by at least three million votes according to
authentic results published by Sahara Reporters the day
before Mr. Orubebe’s meltdown at the ICC.
A source at the Presidency confirmed to Sahara Reporters
that President Jonathan personally reached out to at least
four returning officers to ask them to inflate presidential
election figures by several hundred thousand votes to
enable him win the elections. In one instance, the source
said, one of the returning officers told the president that the
number of accredited voters was not up to the figures
Jonathan wanted him to present to INEC. According to our
source, the president remained unfazed. “ Just declare the
votes, I will take care of the rest ,” the official quoted
Jonathan as stating.
Our sources at the Presidency said Jonathan was counting
on the usual tactics of using corrupt judges in the Court of
Appeal as well as Supreme Court to uphold the outcome of
fraudulent elections.
The sources also revealed that Sahara Reporters played a
critical role in frustrating the president’s rigging plan by
publishing the unofficial results of the presidential polls
based on accurate compilation of results called at various
state collation centers. “When your website published the
results, there was little or no room to maneuver,” one
source at Aso Rock said. He added that Mr. Orubebe’s
reference to the publication of the election results was
actually a reference to Sahara Reporters’ accurate
representation of the polls tally from across the country.
Our source said that, having been convinced that President
Jonathan could pull off a victory by manipulating figures,
some of his ministers and party officials began celebrating.
For instance, a junior minister for Foreign Affairs, Musiliu
Obanikoro, tweeted that he wished to be the first to
congratulate Jonathan for emerging victorious. Also PDP
spokesperson, Olisa Metuh, spoke on Channels TV, urging
the APC to accept defeat and behave peacefully [in
anticipation of the rigging] .
In the end, President Jonathan and his team came to terms
with the reality that no amount of hanky-panky could
secure victory for them. Jonathan’s much-praised
acceptance of defeat was not part of his original design,
according to sources close to the president. They said
world leaders had inundated Jonathan with calls
demanding that he accept the outcome of the polls. The
calls were intensified as soon Mr. Orubebe began his public
action aimed at disrupting the collation.
Diplomatic sources in Abuja told Sahara Reporters that the
UK and US put enormous pressure on President Jonathan
not to undermine the collation process or scuttle the polls.
The barrage of pressure finally worked. Jonathan gave
orders for the pilot of the presidential jet to head for
Maiduguri to pick up the Borno State returning officer.
Once the official was brought to Abuja, the final collation
was done and Buhari emerged the winner.

esantex:
Jonathan Personally Called INEC Returning Officers to Rig and Increase His Votes To Win
According to their
findings, President Goodluck Jonathan played a direct role
in efforts to rig Nigeria’s presidential election that took
place on March 28, 2015, including placing telephone calls
to pressure returning officers to alter vote tallies.
The extent of effort to rig the polls for Jonathan and the
outgoing president’s direct role in the scheme, emerged
from interviews and tips offered by electoral officials,
security agents, foreign and Nigerian election monitors, and
members of the president’s own party - the PDP.
Weeks before the election, as Jonathan’s internal pollsters
warned that his reelection prospects looked dire, the
president and his inner circle of associates approved
several measures to rig the elections...
Investigation by Sahara Reporters revealed that these
included massive deployment of soldiers to several states
in Nigeria’s southwest to help intimidate voters
sympathetic to the APC, the redeployment of police and
other security officials to ensure that those who favored the
incumbent president were assigned to “politically tough”
states, and the movement of massive amounts of cash to
designated states to entice both voters and opposition party
agents to swing their support to Jonathan.
When all the steps failed to deliver enough votes to the
president, Jonathan and his inner circle went into panic
mode once collation of results began. At the end of the first
day of election collation by INEC, as it dawned on the
president’s team that he was headed for defeat, Jonathan
sent retired Colonel Bello Fadile to shop around for any
judge who would give an order to stop the collation.
A judge told Sahara Reporters that this effort largely failed
because the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court had
warned other judges to refrain from entertaining such
controversial and potentially incendiary election-related
cases . The one judge Mr. Fadile thought he could count on
pleaded that he had left Abuja for his hometown for Easter
holidays.
Once the plan to use judiciary to scuttle the collation
collapsed, Mr. Fadile recruited ex-Minister of Niger Delta
Affairs, Godsday Orubebe, to lead the role in a plan to
physically disrupt collation of results.
Mr. Orubebe drove into the collation center with two heavily
armed men believed to be Niger Delta militants. Once Mr.
Orubebe arrived at the International Civil Center (ICC), of
the collation venue, the Department of Security Services
(DSS) withdrew its security detail clearing the way for Mr.
Orubebe’s thugs to foment mayhem. The agency also
jammed the Internet service at the center, making it near
impossible for reporters at the venue to access the Internet.
Our investigation revealed that what saved the day was the
refusal of the Nigerian police at the venue to accept the
order to withdraw from the venue. The police commanders
at the collation center demanded an official letter from their
Inspector General if they were to leave, arguing that their
posting to the venue had been done via an official letter.
“ We said it would be unwise to leave [the collation center]
without a counter letter or signal from our headquarters,”
one of the police officers told our correspondent.
As Mr. Orubebe began his disruptive action, Usman
Abdullahi, an aide to INEC chairman Attahiru Jega, sent
text messages to a few notable Nigerians as well as some
Western diplomats alerting them to the possibility that the
armed men who accompanied Mr. Orubebe would abduct
Mr. Jega. Sahara Reporters saw a copy of the text
message.
Mr. Jega’s calm response to Mr. Orubebe’s antics, as well
as the refusal of the Nigerian police personnel to quit the
ICC, foiled the plot to abduct the INEC chairman.
Mr. Jega remained on his seat for the better part of the
day, refusing to leave the table even as he declared short
breaks to await the arrival of election returning officers
from various states.
Sahara Reporters learned that several of the returning
officers were flown into Abuja on a presidential jet.
However, the jet made unusual “disappearances” and
curiously long delays in bringing in returning officers from
the South South and South Eastern states. One of the
Presidency sources said the president ordered a delay in
flying in the returning officer of Borno State by at least four
hours. The president figured that the poll results from the
state would widen Mr. Buhari’s lead, giving Nigerians and
the global community a clear picture of the APC
candidate’s decisive and irreversible domination of the
presidential polls.
While the returning officer from Borno State was
abandoned at the Air Force base in Maiduguri, the returning
officer from Delta State presented figures that temporarily
seemed to boost Mr. Jonathan’s electoral fortunes .
Several sources disclosed that these delays were part of
President Jonathan’s tactical game. President Jonathan
made frantic calls to several returning officers from the
South South and South East urging them to bump up his
final figures to enable him win by at least 500,000 votes
against his rival, Muhammadu Buhari. At the time of the
president’s calls to returning officers, Mr. Buhari was
already leading by at least three million votes according to
authentic results published by Sahara Reporters the day
before Mr. Orubebe’s meltdown at the ICC.
A source at the Presidency confirmed to Sahara Reporters
that President Jonathan personally reached out to at least
four returning officers to ask them to inflate presidential
election figures by several hundred thousand votes to
enable him win the elections. In one instance, the source
said, one of the returning officers told the president that the
number of accredited voters was not up to the figures
Jonathan wanted him to present to INEC. According to our
source, the president remained unfazed. “ Just declare the
votes, I will take care of the rest ,” the official quoted
Jonathan as stating.
Our sources at the Presidency said Jonathan was counting
on the usual tactics of using corrupt judges in the Court of
Appeal as well as Supreme Court to uphold the outcome of
fraudulent elections.
The sources also revealed that Sahara Reporters played a
critical role in frustrating the president’s rigging plan by
publishing the unofficial results of the presidential polls
based on accurate compilation of results called at various
state collation centers. “When your website published the
results, there was little or no room to maneuver,” one
source at Aso Rock said. He added that Mr. Orubebe’s
reference to the publication of the election results was
actually a reference to Sahara Reporters’ accurate
representation of the polls tally from across the country.
Our source said that, having been convinced that President
Jonathan could pull off a victory by manipulating figures,
some of his ministers and party officials began celebrating.
For instance, a junior minister for Foreign Affairs, Musiliu
Obanikoro, tweeted that he wished to be the first to
congratulate Jonathan for emerging victorious. Also PDP
spokesperson, Olisa Metuh, spoke on Channels TV, urging
the APC to accept defeat and behave peacefully [in
anticipation of the rigging] .
In the end, President Jonathan and his team came to terms
with the reality that no amount of hanky-panky could
secure victory for them. Jonathan’s much-praised
acceptance of defeat was not part of his original design,
according to sources close to the president. They said
world leaders had inundated Jonathan with calls
demanding that he accept the outcome of the polls. The
calls were intensified as soon Mr. Orubebe began his public
action aimed at disrupting the collation.
Diplomatic sources in Abuja told Sahara Reporters that the
UK and US put enormous pressure on President Jonathan
not to undermine the collation process or scuttle the polls.
The barrage of pressure finally worked. Jonathan gave
orders for the pilot of the presidential jet to head for
Maiduguri to pick up the Borno State returning officer.
Once the official was brought to Abuja, the final collation
was done and Buhari emerged the winner.