By Omar Bah
The chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Alieu Momarr Njai, has challenged the opposition APRC to bring forward proofs to back their allegations that the 2016 presidential election was rigged.
“Saying things to the public that you knew are not facts and you could not prove is wrong. They know they lost and cannot say otherwise. The APRC were in power they lost so they can say anything to put things out of context and proportion,” said Chairman Njai.
Mr Njai is reacting to the interim leader of the opposition APRC Fabakary Tombong Jatta who on Tuesday told journalists his party is still confident that the 2016 presidential election was rigged.
“I have been hearing lot of stories through mainstream and social media but I ignored them. But for these recent allegations from Fabakary Tombong Jatta, I cannot ignore, because it is the reputation of the IEC that is at stake. I want to say that our system is in such a way that you cannot forge or rig it,” Njai stressed yesterday.
Speaking further Mr Njai said he is 100% confident that the APRC has no proof to back their claims.
“And as far as the IEC is concerned we have our proofs to defend ourselves. We accept that we I have made
mistakes during the collation but If I was going to rig the election, I would have rigged it in favour of Jammeh, because he was putting pressure on me to add 25, 000 votes onto his votes,” he claimed.
He continued: “But I thank Allah for giving me the fortitude to resist the inducement and the threats. In that particular case, APRC can ask Lamin Manga or the journalists who were here that night. On two occasions I was asked to stop the announcement, because the president was going to announce on TV that he conceded defeat. He knew he had lost.”
Mr Njai said the IEC system is designed in such a way that the chairman is the last to know the results, “because once voting ends, counting is done on the spot, collated regionally and then they take it to the regional office before they send it to us.”
“So how could it be rigged? It is not possible. Even though there were some differences in the total votes when the votes were tabulated Jammeh knew he had lost the election. I can assure everybody that the system we have in place is transparent and nobody dares to rig it,” he concluded.
