Former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, has claimed the two-week postponement of the 2015 general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was not done to mar the victory of Muhamadu Buhari as widely held by his supporters.
Adoke said on the contrary, President Goodluck Jonathan stood a better chance of winning his re-election on the first date if INEC had gone ahead to conduct the polls in the face of insecurity.
Adoke served as AGF during the administration of Jonathan between 2011-2015.
He made the revelation in his soon to be released book titled: ‘Burden of Service.’
Said Adoke: “The 2015 elections timetable had to be adjusted to forestall a political crisis, as the Boko Haram insurgency raged strongly in the North East. The perception in Buhari’s camp was that the change was intended to hurt their candidate.
“That was preposterous. It would have been to our advantage for elections to have proceeded as scheduled. The insurgency prone areas were Buhari’s strongholds. The PDP would have enjoyed some numerical advantage.”
He said if Jonathan was desperate, he would have damned all the consequences and prosecute Buhari based on available reports that indicted him.
In chapter 12 of the book, with the subtitle: ‘The Buhari Test’, Adoke claimed that God used him to thwart moves by some unnamed persons in Jonathan’s administration to scuttle the participation of Buhari in the election.
In 2015, there were attempts by some persons to drag Buhari to court following his Senior School Certificate controversy. While Buhari had claimed that his documents were with the Nigerian military, the claim was denied before the election.
“In the fullness of time, though, President Buhari would come to realise and accept the whole truth that God used me and two other high-profile Nigerians whom I will not name for confidential reasons, to make sure he (Buhari) was not disqualified by the courts from running in 2015.
“The two individuals have, like me, also suffered indignity in the hands of Buhari and his men. There was the option to legally strangulate Buhari if we were desperate to hold on to power,” Adoke wrote.(The Sun, Nigeria)
