TRG declared that it no more had confidence in Jega unless he could clear his name on allegations leveled against him, including one by the Southern Nigerian Peoples Assembly, SNPA, that he attended meetings with leaders of Northern Elders Forum, NEF, where plots were hatched to compromise the integrity of the electoral process in the country.
TNG, in a press conference jointly addressed yesterday in Lagos by Yinka Odumakin, Colonel Tony Nyiam, rtd, Comrade Ezike Ibuchukwu and Alfred Ilenre, reacting to the postponed general election said: "SNPA claimed further that Jega accepted a donation of 100 laptops for each state of the North from the Northern elders which were given to youth activists to compromise the registration process among legions of other charges."
Prof. Jega had Saturday night announced shift of the elections earlier scheduled to hold on February 14 and 28 to March 28 and April 11, saying that the INEC shifted the exercise not due to non-readiness on its part but on the part of the country's security apparatus, who said they could not guaranty security for the exercise.
Odumakin declared that it was quite obvious that Jega was not addressing the core issue as he failed to take responsibility for obvious lapses that characterised the shoddy preparations for the now rescheduled polls.
He said: "He rather went ahead in his boisterous claims that the commission was better prepared to conduct the 2015 elections than it was in 2011 but for the insistence of security forces that they could not guaranty safety."
Odumakin asserted that it was a clear sign of gross irresponsibility for Jega to say that his inability to distribute 23 million permanent voter cards, PVCs, excluding the numbers that had not been collected from the 45 million he claimed he had distributed, represented a better preparation, adding that perhaps, 'preparation' has a different meaning in the INEC boss' dictionary.
He said that "much more surprising was the gusto with which he rolled out the high percentage of distribution of PVCs in insurgency ravaged states in the North East: Borno (68%), Gombe (78%), Yobe (79.4%) and Adamawa (80.9%)
"Reasonable people are bound to wonder what magic Jega performed in war zone that he could not do in Lagos where PVC collection is at a ridiculous 38.39%."
Accusing Jega of making wild claims about improvements in card delivery, Odumakin said "our investigations reveal that not a single new card has been delivered to many of the collection centres in Lagos in the last two, three weeks.
"There have also been claims of deliberate denials of cards to owners based on subjective factors which suggest deliberate plans to disenfranchise certain categories of voters their cards in the state due to the voting patterns in the 2011 elections."
TRG also said it was not impressed by Jega's arrogant waving off of weighty allegations made by the Credible Alternative Alliance, CAA, led by former governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa that Jega skewed PVCs' distribution in favor of a particular candidate.
Insisting that all the 68.8 million registered voters must be given unfettered access to freely collect their PVCs and cast their votes as provided for in the constitution, TRG said it could be forced to take INEC to court if that condition was not met.
It said: " Voters in the zones that tend to support President Goodluck Jonathan are massively disenfrachised by the application of the so-called PVCs debacle, 40 to 50 per cent of voters in these regions will be denied their right to vote by INEC.
"That is nearly half of the support base of the President, simply nullified by administrative failure prior to the election. By comparison, the zones that tend to support Muhammdau Buhari are handed a massive voter advantage, nearly 80 per cent of his support base will be allowed to cast their votes by INEC.
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