Former President Goodluck Jonathan has revealed he considered halting Nigeria’s 2015 general elections after widespread failure of the INEC card reader system including at his own polling unit.
In a recent interview, Jonathan disclosed that the device failed to recognize him, his wife, and his mother during accreditation.
He claimed the malfunction disproportionately affected voters in the South, while in the North, officials reportedly bypassed the technology entirely.
“In 2015, the INEC card reader rejected many voters in the South, including me and my wife,” he said.
“Meanwhile, in the North, people were allowed to vote without accreditation. So you really saw something was not quite right. I could have stopped the election.”
Jonathan described the period as one of extreme national tension, marked by religious and regional divides.
He also said there were persistent rumors of a military coup and credible threats to his life.
“If anybody wanted to kill me, I preferred it happened in the State House so Nigerians would know I was assassinated there,” he said. “I had committed no offense.”
The former president rejected advice to relocate to a guest house for safety, fearing any attack outside the Villa could spark misinformation.
“They might have said Indian girls brought apples to kill me. I didn’t want those kinds of stories.”
