Go out and vote, NLC urges electorate

The Nigerian Labour Congress has expressed shock at the last minute postponement of the presidential and National Assembly elections.

In a statement issued yesterday, the NLC President Ayuba Wabba, said the Congress shared in the pains of those who show an uncommon spirit of patriotism by traveling long distances to perform their civic duty and the outrage of those who had incurred huge and unquantifiable logistic costs.

He said there was no explanation good enough by INEC to justify the sudden postponement due the repeated assurances from it and the zeal of Nigerians to cast their vote.

He, however, said that given the fact that had the election taken place, a huge number of Nigerians would have been disenfranchised on account of gross and wide-spread logistic deficit, the postponement, as painful as it is, is a lesser evil.

Wabba said, “in light of this, we enjoin all Nigerians to quickly put behind them this ugly incident and brace up for the rescheduled election next weekend. “In spite of huge costs to them, we call on all Nigerians to self-mobilise on the same scale that they did the previous weekend. Let them not be disillusioned or react to this postponement in a manner that will create voter- apathy. This will certainly be counterproductive and will in the long run work against the interests of the electorate.” The NLC president called on institutions to be flexible with their staff to enable them travel in good time to perform their civic duty even if it means government declaring a day or two public holiday to achieve this.