Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INE), Prof. Attahiru Jega on Wednesday admitted that there was pressure on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as 2015 approaches.
Jega, who was addressing Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in Abuja, said there are some politicians who cannot be pleased as long as a position does not favour them, even as INEC tries to be fair to all.
He said: “There is no doubt that as we edge closer to 2015, the work load and the pressure will also continue to increase, we also come under all sorts of attacks from the gladiators from the political arena. The key factor here is that we must remain focused on what needs to be done in line with the laws and to ensure that all of us are very impartial and non-partisan and fully compliant with the legal framework in the discharge of our responsibilities.
“It is natural particularly in our kind of environment in which we operate that we will not please everybody, when take a decision and one side is happy and the other side will not be happy and in our own country when people are not happy, they more or less tend to lose their senses and they do all sorts of things, throw all sorts of insults on us an in fact often display the tendency to attempt to throw away the baby with the bathwater, that is the nature of our political terrain”.
He urged the RECs to continue to do their best to ensure that they improved on the electoral system adding that the people of Nigeria and indeed posterity will judge them kindly for making sacrifices for the country.
He said the national headquarters of INEC will continue to work has to ensure that the conditions of service of the RECs as well as those other staff were improved in order to enable them have the enabling environment to improve on the integrity of the electoral process.