Prof. Attahiru Jega’s response
to PDP party agent Godsday Orubebe , who created an embarrassing scene at the
collation centre in Abuja this morning, trying to disrupt announcement of
results.
"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 what allegations or accusations you make. Certainly you
should be careful about your public conduct"...
Prof Jega's full response after the cut
"You have made two comments. One is that you
submitted a petition which I refused to accept. Secondly you claimed that there
was a result released by the APC which you alleged that we gave to them or I
gave to them. With regards to the first point, yesterday after we took the
first batch of results in this hall and as we declared a recess until 4pm,
as I was walking down back to the office, my PA came to me and said that here
are some papers that Dr Bello Fadile, a representative of the PDP said that he
should collect it; that I said Dr Fadile should give him those papers. I told
him that I didn't tell Dr Fadile to give any papers to you. Return them to him
because Dr Fadile, after we declared for recess came on to this platform. As a
party agent, he is not supposed to do that and gave some documents to my PA who
is writing results here. and I am sure some of the agents and some of the
pressmen may have seen that and I told my PA to take back those documents to
him. If he told you I told him to give you any documents, I did not.
Take them back to him, Subsequently, Dr Fadile sent me a
text message saying that there are petitions and that he wants to submit them.
I told him we don't collect petitions on the platform when we are declaring
results and then he said I should have left my office open so that they can
submit those petitions in my office. I told him our secretary, the secretary to
the commission is not anywhere in this hall. She is in her office and that her
business is to receive communication. If they are important enough, she would
bring them to me here. I have started collation. I cannot be receiving petition
in this hall or in this platform. And when I replied that text message, he
replied again and said Okay, he will see what he can do. I interpreted the text
as he was going to take that petition or whatever document he has to the
secretary of the commission. As I speak with you now, I have not received
anything from the secretary to the commission. That is regards to the issue of
the so called petition.
Regarding results published by APC on its website, I do
not give results to anybody. The results were announced formally as INEC are
results declared here. And we have warned everybody to be careful and to ensure
that the do not declare results which we have not officially announced. So as
far as I am concerned I have not seen any results. I have not given anybody any
results. So for you to even engage me on that issue I think frankly that is not
fair to me. I have not seen the results. How can I speak on something that I
have not seen. So please let us be careful of what we say or do so that we do
not disrupt a process that has ended peacefully and in a matter of hours we
would be able to finish it.". Jega said
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