Prof. Attahiru Jega (right) and Ahmed 'Lateef when he visited Ilorin last Saturday.

Erstwhile Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, on Saturday in Ilorin joined other eminent personalities to celebrate the 80th birthday of a former National Commissioner of INEC, Dr Abdulkadir Oniyangi. Jega, who exited the electoral commission on June 30th, returned to Bayero University, Kano. The Herald's political correspondent, Ahmed 'Lateef, cornered him for a brief interview on the outcome of 2015 general elections and other sundry electoral issues.

Since your returning to the classroom after your assignment at INEC, how have you been able to stabilize the system?

We thank Almighty Allah for his blessings and for His mercy. It wasn't a difficult thing for me to go back to the University, because I was in the University having taught for 30 years when I was asked to come and do the job of INEC chairman. I didn't know anything, until then, outside of teaching and research in the university.

Al-Amdulilah, I have done five years at INEC and thanks be God, people have appreciated that we have done our best to improve the electoral process. So I was very happy to go back to the classroom, hoping that I will be able to share my experiences and also continue to teach the younger upcoming generation, because we need educated and enlightened people to continue to help in the develop of our country.

So, I'm very happy, I'm one of the happiest people I believe in this country, going back to the university, trying to lead a private life, and trying to continue to do what I know how to do best, which is to study, to learn and to teach.

Can you share your trying period as INEC boss?

I think there will be time for me at some point to speak more definitively about my experiences in INEC. This is not the time, and I crave your indulgence not to answer that question.

How do you think INEC can improve on electoral process in the country?

INEC has come a long way in the last five years. We studied the problem of INEC and we did our best put measures to address those challenges and problems, and I believe that the next five years will be a period of consolidation of the gains and value addition in terms of doing even better things than what we have been able to do. Because we were too busy confronting the problems that we could have done more, but we couldn't.

So, I believe that the next commission will be able to do even more because we have been able to use the last five years to address a lot of the challenges.

The introduction of card reader seems to have restored people's confidence in the conduct of elections in the country. What do you think can still be done to improve the more?

There is no doubt that the introduction of the card reader and permanent voter's card (PVC) have gone a long way to improve the integrity of the electoral process in our country. And I'm very happy we took the decision to introduce these two elements, which relied on technology to bring integrity into electoral process.

I believe that the card has come to stay and permanent card also. What remains to be done is to continue to clean up the electronic register, to continue to update it and to also improve upon the card reader by addressing all the challenges, which we identified using it in the 2015 general elections.

This will be minor adjustment to continue to improve the way in which it will be used. Obviously, when you are using technology, it keeps on improving. So you have to also try to keep up with the changes in the technology. So I envisage that we will have to update the software that we have used for the card reader. We may also have to even update the software for the database, which we used to keep the data of registered for voters.

But the good thing is that we have very good people in INEC now, who are technology savvy and who will continue to improve upon the use of technology in our electoral process.

Following the drama displayed by Orubebe at the final stage of 2015 general elections, was there anytime he called to apologize for his misconduct?

I think the Orubebe's incidence is behind us, and we should just move on, and not be held back by it. I was made to understand that a day or two after the incident, Mr Orubebe made a public apology through some of the news media. And I think that is sufficient enough.

I think the challenges for us is to ensure that statesmen act as statesmen, and under all circumstances we control our emotions and we resist the temptation of making wild allegations, which can disrupt a process as important as the election. But I think virtually everybody now probably has learnt lessons from that.

With the outcome of 2015 polls, will you say we have attained international standard?

As I have said, we have come a long way in the conduct of elections in Nigeria. We believe while there is still room for a lot of improvement, we have attained a level in which many countries are now trying to learn from us, and I think that is satisfactory.

But we have to keep on improving also.

Obviously, for elections to be ideal, we must continue to meet international expectations used in the national good practices and international standards of the conduct of elections. I believe in 2015 general elections, we have used a lot of this. What we need to do is to continue to use the ones we have used successfully, and to continue to even introduce more.

I have no doubt that the future is very bright for INEC in terms of consolidating the electoral reform process.