The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, early hours of the long-awaited D-day of scheduled Presidential and National Assembly polls postponed to February 23rd, the General election earlier scheduled for Saturday, February 16th, 2019.
INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, who announced the postponement also said, that continuing with the election as earlier scheduled was no longer feasible. In his words: “Following a careful review of the implementation of its logistics and operational plan, and the determination to conduct free, fair, and credible elections, the commission came to the conclusion that proceeding with the elections as scheduled is no longer feasible.”
The INEC boss also said the Governorship and State Assembly elections had been moved to March 9, 2019. Nigerians have been pouring their anger on INEC since the postponement.
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, through his Media Aide, Ike Abonyi said that shoddy arrangement for the 2019 election by the Independent National Electoral Commission is a deliberate pre-determined agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari to cling on to power “even when it is obvious to him that Nigerians want him out”.
Secondus in the statement said the postponement, which is part of a grand design by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to thwart the will of Nigerians at all cost, clearly exposes INEC as a failure and called on the Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to resign immediately.
On his part, President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed deep disappointment over the postponement of the presidential and National Assembly polls by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The President lamented that, despite giving all the necessary support to the electoral umpire, the exercise was postponed just hours to voting and after Nigerians had taken the pains to travel to vote.
His exact words: “I am deeply disappointed that despite the long notice given and our preparations both locally and internationally, the Independent National Electoral Commission postponed the presidential and National Assembly elections within hours of its commencement,” Buhari said in a statement he signed on Saturday morning in Daura, Katsina State. He, however, advised INEC to ensure the safety of election materials already distributed and appealed to Nigerians to remain law abiding.
Buhari also stated that he had decided to relocate to Abuja from Daura to ensure that the meeting INEC called to hold with stakeholders was successful. That is how a statesman should react to the situation. The fact that Buhari travelled to Daura to exercise his franchise shows that he was very ready for the elections as he was going to win it at first ballot with very wide margin.
But the PDP was rather reckless in their choice of words in their reaction. Calling on INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu to resign as a result of one week postponement was uncalled for and childish. Even International observers who were equally not pleased with the postponement, carefully chose their words to INEC. They only advised the electoral umpire to stick to the new dates. They did not haul abuses and insults on INEC Chairman as the garrulous PDP chairman would do.
Most worrisome is the fact that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has made allegation after allegation about how the electoral umpire is working with or working under pressure from the ruling government to rig the elections in its favour. The postponement, unfortunately provided the PDP another opportunity to raise spurious allegations against the ruling APC.
It should be drummed into the empty skulls of Uche Secondus and his co-travelers that President Muhammadu Buhari does not need the postponement of elections or connivance with the umpire to defeat Atiku. If the poll is conducted twenty times or one hundred times, President Buhari will defeat Atiku and any other challenger for that matter, fairly and squarely. Secondus should not forget in a hurry that same Buhari defeated a sitting PDP President fairly and squarely in spite of the rigging plots of the PDP in 2015. Even in that year, the PDP Federal Government postponed the election for six weeks and nobody called for heavens to fall down. Nobody shouted hoax.
What we needed tell INEC is to urge them to ensure not only that materials already distributed are safe and do not get into wrong hands, but that everything is done to avoid the lapses that resulted in this unfortunate postponement, and ensure a free and fair election on the rescheduled dates.
While many have expressed outrage over the fact that the 2019 elections were postponed only hours to voting, it will be recalled that INEC postponed the 2011 National Assembly elections after people had already started voting.
Voting was already taking place in some parts of the country on April 2, 2011, when Jega announced that it would be suspended due to the late arrival of result sheets in many parts of the country.
In the words of Jega, “The result sheets are central to the elections and their integrity. Accordingly, in many places, our officials have not reported at the polling units, making it now difficult to implement the Modified Open Ballot Procedure that we have adopted.
“Not only do we have to enter the results in the sheets, the number of accredited voters is also to be entered in the result sheet.”
The elections were postponed by two days and held on April 4. Did anybody ask Attahiru Jega, INEC Chairman to resign at that time, the answer is no.
Unlike the 2019 elections that were postponed just hours before the polls were supposed to open, INEC postponed the 2015 elections a week before its initially scheduled date.
Even though then-chairman, Attahiru Jega, disclosed that the commission was ready to conduct the elections as initially scheduled, the National Council of State advised that the exercise should be postponed for six weeks due to security reasons. Where was Uche Secondus? Was he in the moon?
The international community has also made several statements appealing to the commission to conduct elections that are not only free, fair and credible but must appear to be so. This is how mature people lend their voices to a process such as elections, not outright condemnation and call for heavens to fall. Heaven will not fall and if it falls, it will not fall on APC members heads alone, but all Nigerians.
President Buhari is not corrupt and remains incorruptible. The PDP bled this country with corruption and even boasted that it will remain in power for 50 years given their corruption prowess. But that is history today and will remain so. Nigeria is moving forward and will never go backward. What we need do now as Nigerians is to support INEC with prayers and encourage them to conduct free, fair and credible elections. That is the right way to go and not the PDP’s call for anarchy.
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Mr. Dan Owegie is a chiseftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Edo State.
