INEC ‘to postpone’ 2015 elections

The 2015 general election may now hold in March following plans by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to move it by six weeks, TheCable understands.

INEC is expected to announce its decision on Saturday evening after meeting with representatives of the political parties.

But the commission has said on its twitter handle that a decision was yet to be taken, that the meeting was still “ongoing”.

INEC has not made any official announcement about Feb. 14th polls. Meetings still ongoing #Nigeriadecides

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— INEC Nigeria (@inecnigeria) February 7, 2015

A senior official of the commission had told TheCable that the election would be a “monumental chaos” if it goes ahead next week as planned because of serious technical, security and logistical hitches.

This development is bound to irk the opposition which has been vehemently opposed to any shift in the dates.

National elections were slated for February 14 while state elections were to hold on February 28.

An official of the commission said: “As we speak, over 2.6 million permanent voters cards (PVCs) have not been printed. We had a big problem with the factory that manufactures the chips. They had a set-back last year but promised to meet up with the required number. It was based on their promise that we eventually went ahead to fix the dates for the elections.”

He also said several PVCs have been stolen from INEC custody and they needed to be invalidated and replacements produced.

“There is also the well-known challenge that nearly 25 million PVCs are yet to be collected, which is significant enough to affect the outcome of the election,” he said, adding that some millions voters registered in 2011 are no longer eligible mainly on the account of death and emigration and register needed to be consolidated.

He said the INEC card readers are yet to be tested “beyond the air-conditioned rooms of our offices”, suggesting that their performance in other parts of the country needed to be assessed before the elections.

The security agencies had also been pushing for a shift in the dates because of the ongoing international joint operation against Boko Haram in the north-east which they said has stretched the resources of the armed forces.

The National Council of State, an advisory body made up of former heads of state, 36 state governors, senate president, speaker and former chief justices, had met on Thursday in Abuja and advised INEC to perform its “civic responsibility”.

The council did not push for the shift in dates as earlier speculated, but initial reports suggested it had asked INEC to go ahead and hold the elections as scheduled.

Supporters of Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), are of the opinion that a shift in the polls was intended to buy time for President Goodluck Jonathan, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and slow down the momentum of the opposition.

Presidential aide Doyin Okupe said on Friday that INEC was not ready for the election, further confirming reports that the push for postponement had the hand of Jonathan whose national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, had said in London last month that he had advised the commission to move the dates.

Jega had said several times that INEC was fully prepared for the elections.