Supervising Minister of Information and Minister of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke, today revealed that the exit of Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega will take a natural course.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja at the headquarters of the Ministry of Information, Duke argued that Jega would not be fired as according to him, President Goodluck Jonathan had promised that Jega's exit from the commission would follow a natural sequence.
According to the minister, "On the issue of the INEC chairman, I align myself with what the president said that he has no plan to sack the INEC chairman.
"That is not to say that if it is time for the INEC chairman to naturally exit his office, then the natural course of things will not take place.
"It is like saying, a civil servant has done 35 years or achieved the age of 60; we now begin to say that he must not retire or he must retire. I think all of that is in the terrain of the presidency and he has spoken.
"I will also like to say once on that issue. I recall that for several weeks now; people keep threatening the president on the shift in the date of the poll.
"You begin to wonder that parties have a couple of extra weeks in order to reinvigorate their campaigns and try to reach as many voters as possible.
"Rather than do that, you begin to identify imaginary pockets of unlikely developments and then focus your attention on them and then when you lose election, you begin to complain."
It would be recalled that members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Senate, had alleged that there was a fresh plot by the Federal Government to stop Jega from overseeing the forthcoming general elections.
According to them, "We have received information from a very credible source that next week, the Chairman of INEC will be given a letter from the office of the Head of the Civil Service to proceed on a terminal leave."
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