11th-hour delay of presidential election disappoints millions

ABUJA, NIGERIA >> The weather. Sabotage of buildings storing election materials. A raft of court challenges.

Those were some of the reasons Nigeria’s elections commissioner cited for his middle-of-the-night decision — announced at 2:30 a.m. Saturday — to delay the nation’s presidential vote hours before polls were to open.

The eleventh-hour postponement, he assured a crowd of international observers, diplomats and civil society groups at news conference in the capital, “had nothing to do with security, nothing to do with political influence.”

The news came as a huge disappointment to millions of Nigerian voters who awoke Saturday morning expecting to vote for one of the more than 70 candidates. Among the contenders is President Muhammadu Buhari, 76, who is vying for a third term. He had traveled to his home village to cast a ballot, only to fly back to the capital Saturday instead.

Many others also had traveled long distances to their home districts to be in place to vote — Nigeria has no absentee voting system. And the frustration was palpable.

Buhari and his leading challenger, Atiku Abubakar, 72, urged their supporters to be patient even as they condemned the oneweek delay.

Critics of Buhari say that in four years in office he has failed to deliver on promises to fix the economy, tackle corruption and improve security. Attacks carried out by criminal organizations and by Boko Haram have been on the rise.

Critics also say the president has used his anti-corruption campaign to target political enemies while sparing his allies. Abubakar is a former vice president and wealthy businessman who has himself been dogged by accusations of corruption. The political parties of the two leading candidates each accused the other of gaining an advantage from the delay.