The Independent\u00a0National Electoral Commission (INEC), has just postponed
\nthe General Elections to the 23rd of February for the Presidential, and
\n6th March, for Governorship and others, following a press release issued
\nunder the designation of the Chairman of the Commission, Professor Mahmood
\nYakubu, on the 16th day of February, 2019, the same day fixed for the
\nPresidential Election.<\/p>\n
While this is not novel, being that the Commission had in past elections
\ntaken the same avoidable decision, this unexpected decision by the INEC
\njust few hours to the Election can be described as the least
\ndisappointing.<\/p>\n
The decision has indeed made the average Nigerian to loss faith in the
\nCommission, and as well doubt the capacity of the body to conduct a free,
\nfair and credible elections, since it is unable to handle simple
\nlogistics. Again, it preaches further the many mistakes of the Commission
\nin the face of the Election.<\/p>\n
The Yakubu led INEC has been before now tagged to be better that the Prof.
\nAttahiru Jega led body under the Good luck Jonathan’s administration, but
\nrecent elections conducted by the body has proven that this may not be the
\ncase.<\/p>\n
First, a fat budget was proposed for the election which was approved; a
\ndate for the Election was fixed, and in its usual manner, the Commission
\ncalled for eligible Nigerians to apply to work as Adhoc Staff for the
\nforthcoming election. The application was rumoured to be online and
\nhandwritten for others, but since this was not clearly spelled out, some
\napplicants were made to dwell in erros before they were eventually
\ndirected on which directive was right.<\/p>\n
Applicants eventually succeeded in applying, but when it was time for the
\nactual training of staff in preparation for the exercise, many of the
\napplicants who applied with the hand-written format were not aware because
\nthey were not adequately informed of the call for training.<\/p>\n
Texts messages were hardly sent despite the fact that the phone numbers of
\nthe applicants were provided. Instead, some persons who didn’t apply in
\nthe first place got trained because they somehow got the information about
\nthe training even before some of the applicants could. Although other
\napplicants were privileged to get the information, fact remains that
\npersons who never applied were trained. One will then ask, why all the
\nformalities?<\/p>\n
Secondly, after the conclusion of the training exercise, INEC didn’t
\npublish the names of the successful applicants not until a day to
\nelection, proper. This was undoubtedly the case of the Yenagoa City Local
\nGovernment area of the Commission.<\/p>\n
The question is: How prepared could a presiding officer be for the task
\nahead, when the same probably may be getting at late hours, the
\ninformation about his or her succes?<\/p>\n
The Almighty Commission made Nigerians believe that they were set for the
\ngame, not until a few hours later, Nigerians were intimated that the
\nelection has been postponed. By this time, many Nigerians have already
\ntravelled to their various polling units in preparation for the big game.
\nThe decision of INEC implies that those affected Nigerians will have to
\nreturn back to their places of work after the postponement. After all,
\nthere won’t likely be a declaration of public holidays for, or perchance
\nthe government may wish to surprise us just the way INEC did. A Press
\nConference was promised anyways.<\/p>\n
INEC, perhaps, did not consider the burden of transportation cost on the
\nshoulders of the affected Nigerians, and the general effect it’s decision
\nwill have on Nigerians at large. INEC, I doubt does not know what it means
\nto disappoint a state, not to talk of a whole Nation as one constituency.<\/p>\n
The decision by INEC will make many Nigerians who have already lost hope
\nin the process to give up completely in the exercise. This may most likely
\naffect the turnout in the main day. Simply put, INEC has failed even
\nbefore the election.<\/p>\n
Recent events show that INEC had not been even prepared in the first
\nplace, and with this level of preparedness, one wonders how such a body
\nwill deliver a free, fair and credible election to the satisfaction of
\nNigerians, observers and of course, the International Community.<\/p>\n
Ebi Robert is a Yenagoa Based Legal practitioner.<\/p>\n
E-mail: Ebi.fortune@Yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Independent\u00a0National Electoral Commission (INEC), has just postponed the General Elections to the 23rd of February for the Presidential, and 6th March, for Governorship and others, following a press release…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n