Uproar as Nigeria delays elections

Postponement puts huge question over outcome

The 11th-hour postponement of Nigeria’s presidential and parliamentary election by one week has set off a flurry of questions about what was behind the delay – and what happens next.

Nigeria’s political establishment has criticised Saturday’s postponement, which was announced about five hours before polls were to open at 7am on Sunday.

Both President Muhammadu Buhari, who is standing for a second term, and the leading opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar, a former vice-president, signalled their disapproval.

Observers say Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) and Abubakar’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) both had complaints about how the election commission has handled preparations.

The PDP claimed that the vote’s integrity was being undermined, and the APC has fumed over court orders that barred their legislative candidates from running in the states of Zamfara and Rivers, because of disputes of primary polling.

The week-long delay could benefit either party, and some are openly suspicious that the APC orchestrated it, despite official denials from the electoral body that the decision was all theirs. “Many people believe that the government created an enabling environment for the postponement,” Auwal Musa, executive director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre said in a televised interview.

People across Nigeria reacted with dismay to the last-minute announcement, but signs of disorganisation were apparent in the days before voting was to start.

Journalists saw numerous polling stations that were only receiving ballot papers and voting card readers on Friday or had not received them at all.

“We had gone through training, preparation. We were ready,” said Austin Onwuosanya, who had been due to officiate in the commercial capital, Lagos.

But voting equipment never showed up at his polling station.

Election planning in Nigeria is often hampered by poor roads and the dilapidated power grid.

The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Com- mission (INEC) in part blamed bad weather and roads for a delay in the distribution of materials.

He insisted ballot papers and results sheets were ready.

But Cheta Nwanze, of analysts SBM Intelligence, said “INEC organisation has regressed under the current chairman”, and that it was possible politicians were deliberately undermining the preparations.

It seems certain the delay will affect the outcome of the final vote.

Many Nigerians travel from cities into the countryside to vote in their family homes, while others return from overseas.

But with most of the country impoverished, despite the country’s vast oil wealth, many Nigerians will struggle to recover from wasted transport money or days of lost work.

Thousands of INEC employees have deployed across the country, some to hard-to-reach rural areas without electricity.

Udo Ilo, Nigeria director for the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, said it was now imperative that INEC safeguard the ballot papers and other sensitive materials distributed before the postponement to prevent tampering.

Yakubu has said sensitive material was being stored at Central Bank of Nigeria facilities until the rescheduled dates. –

We had gone through training, preparation. We were ready