- Nigerians React as INEC Postponed General Elections
Nigerians have rejected the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s reasons for the postponement of the general elections.
Nigerians, who took to social media immediately after the announcement, said INEC had four years to prepare for the general elections and announced February 16 more than a year ago. Still, the Independent National Electoral Commission chose today to embarrass the nation.
On twitter, Kene @Cassey300 said so @inecnigeria waited till 5hrs to vote and decided to postpone the election. What about people that have travelled miles to go and vote? Inec save our country.
Pontius Pilate @Pontius007 said incompetence at its peak. On election day? Damn!
Former Governor of Ekiti State, Peter Ayodele Fayose, who also took to his twitter said: Two days ago, I told Nigerians that the Presidency cabal were considering postponement of the elections because they knew that they can’t win. Now I’m vindicated. With this, they have only succeeded in making their situation worse. Nigerians will defeat this tyranny ultimately.
Others are complaining about cost implications of such decision, saying most of the materials will have to be reprinted, while the cost of maintaining international observers will jump up.
Businesses that closed early on Friday will have to do the same on February 23, when the election is now scheduled to take place. Suggesting that business activity will remain down for another week.
However, APC Presidential Campaign Council, led by Festus Keyamo, condemned the postponement of the elections: “We condemn and deprecate this tardiness of the electoral umpire in the strongest terms possible. President Muhammadu Buhari had since cooperated fully with INEC by ensuring EVERYTHING it demanded to conduct free and fair elections were promptly made available to it. This news is, therefore, a huge disappointment to us and to our teeming supporters nationwide and around the world, many of whom have come into the country to exercise their franchise,” Keyamo said in a statement.
While Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, has asked Nigerians to remain peaceful and come on February 23rd to vote.
“The Buhari administration has had more than enough time and money to prepare for these elections and the Nigerian people were poised and ready to perform their civic responsibility by voting in the elections earlier scheduled for Saturday, 16 February 2019,” Atiku said in a signed statement from Yola, Adamawa State.
“This postponement is obviously a case of the hand of Esau but the voice of Jacob. By instigating this postponement, the Buhari administration hopes to disenfranchise the Nigerian electorate in order to ensure that turn out is low on the rescheduled date. Nigerians must frustrate their plans by coming out in even greater numbers on Saturday, 23 February and Saturday, 9 March, respectively.”
