Nigeria elections: INEC rules out sabotage, says nobody forced it to postpone polls

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of Nigeria has said the decision to postpone the 2019 general elections was entirely that of the commission and not due to any external influence.

The commission also ruled out the activities of internal saboteurs in the incidences that led to the postponement of the elections.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this, yesterday, in Abuja at a meeting with stakeholders in the electoral process held at the International Conference Centre (ICC) which serves as the National Collation Centre for the polls. “I want to appeal to Nigerians and all other stakeholders for their understanding in what has been a very difficult decision for the Commission.

But we believe that ultimately this is for the good of our democracy and country. I wish to assure you of our commitment to free, fair and credible elections”, Yakubu said.

“As Chairman of INEC, and on behalf of the Commission, we take full responsibility for what happened and we regret any inconvenience our decision might have caused”.

He recalled how the plan for the 2019 general elections was ready in November 2017 and the subsequently issued the timetable and schedule of activities for the elections over a year ago, that is,  January 2018.

“We carefully followed the timetable and implemented 13 of the 14 activities as scheduled. We kept to the time frame and have not missed the date fixed for any single activity”.

Why we shifted the polls Speaking on how the postponement of the polls became inevitable, the INEC boss said, “In preparing for the 2019 general elections, we have come face-to-face with the realities of conducting such an extensive national deployment of men and materials in a developing country like ours. It is said that elections constitute the most extensive mobilization of men and materials that any country could undertake in peacetime. The challenges of doing so, even under the best of circumstances, are enormous.”

“Within a period of 16 months, we registered over 14 million Nigerians as new voters, collecting their names, addresses, photographs and their entire ten fingerprints. Beyond that, we prepared, printed and delivered their permanent voter’s cards for collection. 1 should note that of the 14.28 million Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) made available for collection, about 10.87 million or 76.12% have been collected.”

No staggered elections Ruling out staggered elections, Yakubu said: “All these challenges mean that there have been differences in preparations from one State to another. Our overall assessment is that if the elections went on as planned, polls will not open at 8am in all polling units nationwide. Yet, we are determined that polls must hold at the same time everywhere in the country. In this way, elections will not be staggered. This is very important to public perception of elections as free. fair and credible. We promised Nigerians that we shall be open. transparent and responsive.

Source: Vanguard

Source: citifmonline.com