President Olusegun Obasanjo has declared Thursday and Friday as work free days to enable people to travel for participation in the gubernatorial and state Houses of Assembly elections on Saturday.
A statement on Wednesday by the Secretary of the Government of the Federation, Chief Ufot Ekaette, however, said, �This declaration of work free days does not include operations of banks and other essential services.�
The declaration, which came to many as a surprise elicited criticisms from the Action Congress, the Nigerian Bar Association and the Atiku Campaign Organisation.
The AC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the �unprecedented� declaration of the work free days amounted �to rigging the poll before they are even conducted.�
�This insidious act has effectively robbed all political parties, with the exception of the Peoples Democratic Party, of the chance to carry out the necessary logistics, including dispatching funds and materials to party agents across this vast country,� the party said.
The Ikeja branch of the NBA also criticised the Federal Government for declaring the two days as public holidays.
The Chairman of the Ikeja branch of the NBA, Mr. Niyi Idowu, said the declaration was a ploy to rig the elections.
�This is yet another initiative that projects the bad faith of the Federal Government. Why hasn�t the government declared the holiday earlier? Imagine the number of Nigerians who would be caught unaware by this measure.
�Nobody prepares for this holiday, nobody asked for it, it was designed to do more than good,� Idowu said.
In its reaction, the Atiku Campaign Organisation described the government�s action as �unprecedented, frivolous, wasteful and unwarranted.�
It said in a statement on Wednesday that there was �no other justification of this unnecessary holiday other than a calculated deliberate and sinister attempt to prevent the law courts from sitting to adjudicate on urgent election related matters.�
The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments on Thursday in an appeal by Abubakar on whether the Independent National Electoral Commission could disqualify candidates without reference to the courts.
However, the Honorary Political Adviser to the President, Chief Akin Osuntokun, in a statement on Wednesday debunked the claims of the critics of the public holidays that the Federal Government had a sinister motive for its action.
He said, �It is in the spirit of providing a conducive atmosphere for the conduct and realisation of free and fair elections that the government has deemed it necessary to declare the work free days for public servants.�