Former President Goodluck Jonathan has asserted that “ghost voters” are the reason behind the inaccuracy of vote counts during elections.
Jonathan said this at the YIAGA Africa Reflection Conference on Democratic Elections in West Africa held in Abuja on Tuesday.
He stated that it is more honourable for the chairman and other officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to resign rather than yield to pressure and manipulate elections.
“In Nigeria, you can’t get an accurate count of votes because I believe that we have too many ghost voters.
“We must have credible people. From what (ex-INEC Chairman, Attahiru) Jega said, political leaders who are so domineering will pressurise you to do what is wrong; you should be able to resign and leave. You should be able to resign and walk away, please.
“If we don’t have this kind of people, then we are in trouble. And I don’t want any INEC official to say I was pressurised.
“If you are accepting to be Chairman of INEC or to be a commissioner of INEC, then you should be ready to say, ‘If I’m pressurised to do what is wrong, I will take care of the democratic people and walk away’.
“And if we don’t have such people managing our electoral management bodies, if what we have are people who will continue to go in a circle, we will not get what we want,” Jonathan said.