NIGERIA’s electoral commission was yesterday scrambling to prepare for rescheduled parliamentary elections on Saturday after two delays cast doubt on its ability to organise the vote in Africa’s top oil producer.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at first delayed for two days voting for parliament that had been set for last Saturday, and announced yesterday that the entire election schedule would be pushed back. The presidential ballot will now take place on Saturday April 16, with state elections a week later.
“Such repeated and last- minute changes are regrettable and do not reflect positively on the state of preparedness of INEC,” Festus Mogae, the former president of Botswana who is leading the observer group of the Commonwealth nations, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
The commission decided it could not hold the legislative election as scheduled because of the late arrival of voting materials. The ruling People’s Democratic Party and the biggest opposition party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), supported the decision to reschedule the vote.
“It’s an opportunity for INEC to address all the anomalies observed on Saturday and take its time to remobilise for the election,” ACN spokesman Lai Mohammed said by phone.
Elections in 2003 and 2007 in Africa’s most populous nation were marred by violence, voter intimidation and the stuffing of ballot boxes.
More than 50 people have died in election-related violence since July, according to watchdog Amnesty International, while sectarian clashes in the north have claimed the lives of at least 200 since December 24.
“People’s confidence to come out and vote may have been shaken by these two postponements,” Clement Nwankwo, director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, which is monitoring the electoral process, said by phone yesterday.
Some polling stations had opened before they were ordered to close because of the late arrival of voting materials. Governor Tunde Fashola of Lagos state, which includes the West African nation’s commercial capital, said on Lagos TV that he was among those who voted. Yesterday he described the original proposal to delay the vote by 48 hours as “probably not well thought out”.
The parliamentary vote is for 109 Senate seats and 360 seats in the House of Representatives. The main opposition parties, Action Congress of Nigeria and the Congress for Progressive Change, aim to cut the majority the People’s Democratic Party won in both houses four years ago by saying it failed to reduce poverty, corruption and violence.
The vote is a prelude to the presidential contest that pits the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, against 18 rivals, including former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari and the former head of the anti-graft agency, Nuhu Ribadu, of the ACN.
Nigeria is the fifth-largest source of US oil imports and home to major oil companies running joint ventures with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
“A successful election means so much for us in terms of the image of our country, in terms of the economic opportunities that it brings because once we get this election right, we are telling the world that politically our country is stable,” Mr Fashola said.
Bloomberg