By JOHN IGHODARO

CALABAR-The INEC has decided to appeal the judgement of an Abuja Federal High Court that five state governors would run for elections in 2012 instead of April 2011.

Briefing  newsmen in Calabar Chairman of INEC, Prof Attahiru Jega said , ‘’We have taken the decision to appeal it.’’

Speaking specifically on Cross River he said, ‘’Frankly whatever we do,  we do in accordance with the rule of law. The constitution, the electoral act and court judgments are there which constitute a legal framework under which we operate.

“One of the important requirements for field candidates for any political party is the requirement of primaries and congresses taking place. In the case of Cross River, information available to us as at the time that we took the decision that we took is that congresses for the selection of candidates did not take place. Yes primaries took place and yes there was a state where our people went to monitor the primaries, but we cannot accept primaries when there were no congresses before that so that is what guided our decision as INEC to say that since congresses did not take place, then we would not accept the result of the primaries.”

Continuing, he said, ‘’We are law abiding and the party (PDP) went to court and obtained a court order and as of now, we are complying fully with the court order. So far as we are concerned, we tackle our decision based on the information available to us based on the credible process that we are having in place. If the court say otherwise, we respect court orders.

‘’If we feel strongly about the court order, we go back to the court and then we request for the court order to be set aside.

As far as I am concerned our Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) in many places especially Cross River (Mike Igini) have been doing their best under difficult circumstances and we have to rely on our RECs and he has done his best and we have no evidence before us that he has done anything outside what is required of him as a representative of INEC,” he added.

Addressing calls for INEC REC in Cross River to be removed, he said, ‘’We have heard news about protest Mike Igini and so on, but we do not rely on rumors, but the facts before us, and the facts before us really show that our RECs especially in Cross River are doing their best under the circumstances.”