The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Rivers state, Gesila Khan, on Monday debunked speculations of having been transferred by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
In a statement to reporters at the INEC office in Port Harcourt during the ongoing inspection and certification of materials used for the 2015 polls, she pointed that she still remains the REC in the state and has not been transferred.
The Rivers REC said that if she had been transferred, that she would not have been part of the ongoing exercise at the state INEC.
Khan stressed, “I am here and I am still here. I have not been transferred. If I had been transferred, I would not be sitting here; I would be packing my things. Even if I am transferred, there is nothing wrong with that because it is government work and anytime you are called to move, you move. But for now, I have not been called to move.”
She added that she has no regret as a result of her experience so far in Rivers State. The REC said as an HR (Human Resources) manager, anything one sees in life, one has to move along with it stating that no man can be predicted. She noted that everyone is free to say whatsoever they want.
Khan who was alleged to have been arrested and detained by the operatives of the Department of State Service (DSS), noted that the photocopying of election materials and certification of documents were going on without any hitches.
According to The Punch, She explained that the INEC headquarters drafted three administrative secretaries to assist in the exercise in order not to delay the submission of required materials to the election tribunal.
She said: “During the presidential election, three national commissioners came; during the governorship election, three national commissioners came and now again, we have three administrative secretaries. That is just to make the job fast and you know the tribunals are time-bound and the work (sorting our election materials) is voluminous.
“We have been working since. Today, it is either this document or another. Some (of the materials), they want in longhand while some (others), they want it in shorthand. So, the law says when they request, you give them and since the time is very short, we have to.”
However, on the issue of being detained by the DSS, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has taken issues with Khan that she was detained by the DSS for two weeks.
The state APC said the DSS invited Khan for questioning, alleging that her actions and in-actions constituted a security threat to the state and the country at large.
APC in a statement signed by its secretary, media and publicity committee, Godstime Orlukwu, said her alleged refusal to release materials used during the last election was capable of affecting the peace of the state. It described Khan as a victim of her own devices.
In the statement, Orlukwu said: “The attention of the Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress has been drawn to claims in the media credited to the Rivers State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dame Gesila Khan, that she was detained by the DSS for two weeks.”
“The APC believes that Khan was never detained. Rather, the DSS invited her for questioning, having been convinced that her actions and deliberate in-actions constituted serious threat to the security of Rivers State and, by extension, that of the country.”
The party, however, challenged Khan to show evidence that she was detained for two weeks, adding that INEC would not have sent a task-force to Rivers for the election materials if the REC had complied with the directive that the elections materials should be released.
“The APC is convinced that Dame Khan’s latest assertions are only aimed currying public sympathy and drawing attention away from her malfeasance before, during and after the last general elections.
“We believe that such antics would be unable to exonerate her and her cohorts from their electoral sins in Rivers State,” he said.
Meanwhile, the APC April 2015 governorship candidate in Akwa Ibom state, Umana Umana, will be attesting before the election petitions tribunal on Thursday, August 20, 2015.
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