Hours after it said it will conduct Saturday’s election in Edo State, the
electoral body has reversed itself and has postponed the election
indefinitely thus pandering to the earlier warning of insecurity issued
by the Police and DSS. INEC did not give a new date.
INEC has behaved in the most irresponsible manner in recent months and the
somersault in the EDO election is not a surprise, an enraged Mr. David
Osagie, a Benin-based businessman said in frustration.
Earlier Thursday INEC had said that after carefully weighing the
consequences and parameters of postponing the Edo governorship election as
advised yesterday (Wednesday) by spokespersons of the Police and
Directorate of State Security (DSS), the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) has decided to go ahead with the conduct of the election
as scheduled for Saturday, 10th September 2016, INEC said in a statement
Thursday.
Addressing press men at the Edo State Office of the Commission Thursday
afternoon, the National Commissioner in charge of Voter Education and
Publicity of INEC, Prince Solomon Adedeji Soyebi, who expressed the
determination of the Commission to go ahead with the election disclosed
that as at Wednesday, the commission had reached not less than
ninety-seven percent level of preparation for the conduct of the election.
Except the actual conduct of the election, he explained that the
Commission had scrupulously implemented all the items listed in the
Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the Edo governorship election
which it issued in March this year.
Prince Soyebi stressed that the Commission would not be teleguided and
that it would not do anything that would mortgage Nigeria’s democracy.
He further emphasized that the Commission robustly considered the
implication of demobilising and arrived at the fact that it was more
expensive to do so.